Using the example of Zwingli‘s death at Kappel, this article examines the role of history in the historiographical projects of Heinrich Bullinger and Johannes Salat. While the Catholic Salat builds on the humanist idea of history as magistra vitae and sees Zwingli‘s bad death as an illustration of the reprehensibility of his reformation project, Bullinger relies more on the concept of history as magistra veritatis in order to make sense of this death. In doing so, however, he also returns to a pre-humanist concept of knowledge that focuses not on the practice of life but on the knowledge of truth.