https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicist_interpretations_of_the_Book_of_Revelation#Antichrist
> Protestant reformers, including Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, John Thomas, John Knox, and Cotton Mather, felt the early church had been led into apostasy by the Papacy and identified it as the Antichrist. The Centuriators of Magdeburg, a group of Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg headed by Matthias Flacius, wrote the 12-volume "Magdeburg Centuries" to discredit the papacy and identify the pope as the Antichrist. So rather than expecting a single Antichrist to rule the earth during a future Tribulation period, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other Protestant reformers saw the Antichrist as a present feature in the world of their time, fulfilled in the papacy.
Historically, the protestants saw the pope as being the anti-christ, which goes waay back before 1832.