Xanten Abbey Museum
The Stiftsmuseum Xanten ( spelling " StiftsMuseum Xanten ") is an ecclesiastical museum whose collection includes not only the church treasure of the St. Viktor Cathedral in Xanten but also other testimonies to regional history. The museum was opened in 2010 and is located in the specially converted building complex of the former canon monastery of St. Viktor. A historical library ("StiftsBibliothek") and an extensive archive ("StiftsArchiv") on the history of the Rhineland are attached to the museum with an exhibition area of 800 square meters.
prehistory
The Canonical Abbey of St. Viktor existed in Xanten for a period of about a thousand years . The wealthy community owned lands on the Maas and Waal in what is now the Netherlands and into the Ruhr area . 17 altars as well as numerous tapestries, sculptures, liturgical implements and reliquaries as well as an extensive collection of paraments have been preserved from the furnishings of the Gothic Xanten collegiate church, which was completed in the 16th century and also served as the parish church .
The collection of the monastery also includes an extensive archive (11th to 18th centuries) with thousands of documents, economic and building files and a library (15th to 18th centuries) with mainly theological, philological and historical works. A graphic collection has been rebuilt with many portraits - including a work by Albrecht Dürer - as well as views, maps and historical representations.
history
Since 1990 there have been plans for a monastery museum, the concept of which was developed by the director of the museum, Dr. Udo Grote (2010-2020) was created. In 1992/1993 Dieter Georg Baumewerd from Münster emerged as the winner of an architectural competition. The Propsteigemeinde St. Viktor as the client financed the construction, which cost 9.3 million euros, through subsidies from the diocese of Münster (over 50 percent), public funds (40 percent) from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (urban development and monument preservation) and the Federal Republic of Germany (Preservation of monuments), as well as funds from the association founded in 1996 and other private sponsors.
Construction began in December 2001; the monastery museum was opened in May 2010.
concept
The monastery museum is located in the historic rooms of the former Viktorstift on the cloister. Originally these served mostly as a winery and collegiate school. The building complex (2,000 m²) includes the museum as well as the archive, library, administration, reading room, magazine and a workshop for book and paper restoration.
The design by the architect Dieter Georg Baumewerd combines historical space and exhibited cultural assets, monuments and modern architecture. The designer Ingrid Bussenius from Cologne has designed a concept for each of the ten very heterogeneous exhibition rooms . The light show comes from atelier de luxe from Offenbach / Main.
The treasury, archive and library were conceptually brought together as a “trinity”. The permanent exhibition ties in with the legend of Saint Victor and also takes into account the Roman times in the area around Xanten. Mainly liturgical implements, reliquaries , sculptures, vestments and liturgical books are shown.
In addition, the Xanten Abbey Museum also shows aspects of manorial rule and economic management, the history of the state, the building history of the collegiate church, the production of manuscripts and printed matter and other handicrafts, as well as the history of certain religious orders .
The focus of the presentation is always the original, which is presented in a separate showcase. Inscription boards explain the religious, cultic or historical dimensions.
exhibition
The ten showrooms of the Xanten Abbey Museum, which run over three floors, are designed both thematically and chronologically. Each of the rooms, which are very different in size and structure, has its own title.
Room 1: Early History
The period of the "early history" extends from the Roman period of the place later called Xanten to the 11th century. On display are Roman imperial coins, figures of gods as small bronzes, consecration stones , Franconian grave goods as well as a decorative floor and sound pots from the collegiate church. Architectural models from the first modest memorial to the Ottonian basilica visualize the building development at the place of worship.
Two special exhibits are embedded here chronologically: the ivory pyxis (eastern Mediterranean, around 500) with depictions of Achilles , the oldest preserved piece of the church treasure, as well as a rosette box made of bone (Byzantium, around 1000), whose fields Heracles and armed warriors from the Joshua - Show history in the Old Testament. This served the canons as a reliquary.
Room 2: The Gothic collegiate church
Room 2 shows parchment certificates, manuscripts, files and contracts on the one hand and building tools and stone samples on the other. They illustrate the craft and administrative activities involved in building the collegiate church . An animation film illustrates the construction of the Gothic collegiate church over a period of around 300 years.
Room 3: Reliquaries
Room 3 is dedicated to the preserved reliquaries . On the one hand, you can see boxes created to hold relics , including an oval box probably created in the Rhineland (after 1166 / around 1200) and one of the Embriachi workshops (Venice, around 1400). On the other hand, there are also containers on display that have been rededicated as reliquaries, such as the rib goblet made of glass (Rhine-Maas region / northeastern France, around 1300) and the alms bag (France, around 1340/50). The cross-foot reliquary made of gilded bronze (Lower Saxony, around 1150) and the lecture cross with antique gems (Aachen, Meister MC, around 1750/60) are still used today for the celebration of Holy Mass. They are taken out of their showcases for the annual Little Victory costume or for pontifical offices or high festivals .
Room 4: History of the monastery
This room is dominated by portraits of Xanten canons in graphic sheets and original paintings. Important archive items such as three medieval pen seals (e.g. the Typar , brass, 1st half of the 12th century), a book of statutes and various business files represent the great effort of the monastery administration. From here you can look into the cloister through a window .
Two media steles with touch screens offer insights into the structure of the pen and its various external relationships. In the adjoining lecture room, a documentary film about 20 minutes long shows episodes from the history of the monastery.
Room 5: sculptures
Most of the sculptures from the late Middle Ages are gathered here, following a mainly chronological arrangement. It starts with a Cologne Madonna (around 1330/40).
The five late medieval sculptures and reliefs as well as the baroque altar painting (H. de Jager, around 1669) of the former Johannes altar from the Xanten collegiate church are built as a cohesive ensemble based on the old model . Only the associated Johannessschüssel (Haupt, Dries Holthuys , around 1500 and Teller, Manises, around 1450) is presented separately for conservation reasons.
Room 6: Liturgy
Similar to their use in the church, liturgical devices and textile room decorations are presented here together. The back wall of the picture and the display table are "staged" as an altar: the colored wall painting with the crucifixion scene (around 1392/96) originally made for the Boniface altar in the Xanten collegiate church, which was transferred to an aluminum plate in 1957, functions here again as an altarpiece.
In a pedestal showcase are the liturgical objects as they are needed in the time after the Tridentine Reform (from 1563) until today for the celebration of the Eucharist at the altar: chalice , paten , chalice veil and bag ( bursa with corporal ) as well as altar candlesticks , measuring jugs and Altar bells and a missal (1629).
The most valuable exhibits are again presented individually in five high showcases in the middle of the room: including a tower monstrance (Cologne or Lower Rhine, around 1370/80), a corresponding chalice (Cologne or Lower Rhine, around 1370/80) and a portable altar from the vicinity of the workshop of the Gregorius Altar in Siegburg (around 1180).
Room 7 and Room 8: Paraments
Two rooms are dedicated to the extensive inventory of liturgical garments and fabrics ( paraments ). The first (room 7) contains medieval objects up to 1520/30, including the chasuble ( chasuble ) of St. Bernhard von Clairvaux (Byzantium, around 1100). It is made of so-called incised silk fabric and is in very good condition.
A wall painting with a deacon (from the Xanten collegiate church, around 1520/30. 1950 transferred to a support plate) and an oil painting with St. Gregory's mass (Antwerp, around 1520) illustrate how paraments are worn. The name of the craftsman and the costs for the wooden towel holder with roller bar (Gysbert Stryck, Kalkar 1523) from the sacristy have been preserved in the treasurer's bills.
The second parament room shows textiles from the period from 1540 to 1780. Here, using the example of chasubles, dalmatic and chalice veils, the focus is on the various precious and magnificent fabric patterns and fabric qualities. In the mostly free-standing display cases, both the front and the back of the liturgical robes can be viewed. Historical copper engravings , etchings and lithographs with illustrations of the manufacturing processes of silk, fabrics and fabric processing illustrate the elaborate manual process of the material.
Room 9: historical events
The concept of the Stiftsmuseum Xanten includes the integration of the history of the monastery into larger historical contexts. In room 9 there are therefore numerous testimonies from the archbishop of Cologne's document on the city elevation of Xanten (1228) to the copper engraving depicting Napoleon in coronation regalia (E. Schuler / G. Metzeroth, around 1830), which also go beyond the history of the country. Graphic sheets with representations of historical events such as the 30 Years War as well as portraits of secular and clerical rulers in combination with selected documents and files from the archive as well as coins and medals show a retrospective of the time from the 13th to the early 19th century.
Room 10: From handwriting to letterpress
This showroom is mainly manual and pamphlets from the 12th to the 18th century, as excerpts from a Bible (around 1130/50) with subsequent Neumennotierungen , a Missal with oriented at the Cologne painting miniatures (to 1430/40) or Copy of the world chronicle of Hartmann Schedel (Nuremberg, 1493). In addition, aspects of book production are illustrated using material samples and illustrative copperplate engravings from the craft.
Through a glass door, the visitor can look into the historic monastery library, an elongated room with floor-to-ceiling wall shelves and compact desks containing around 15,000 printed works, including over 450 incunabula (early printed works).
Communication and research
communication
In several rooms of the Stiftsmuseum Xanten there are media stations with information offers between the historical exhibits. Audio guides are available in four languages, including a special version for children.
Tour guides offer general tours or special themed tours as required, such as "Handwriting and book printing", "Paramente" or "Goldsmith's art". On request, these can be combined with tours through the Xanten Cathedral. There is a special tour for children and young people. Workshops for adults as well as a museum educational offer for children and young people are also part of the offer.
research
Research projects result from cooperation with universities and scientific institutions from home and abroad. Facilities such as a lecture room and didactic aids are available. A reading room with a reference library, which includes numerous encyclopedias and rare standard works (e.g. regesta volumes), is accessible to researchers and interested laypeople.
Publications
- Udo Grote, Elisabeth Maas: Selection catalog . 1st edition. StiftsMuseum, Xanten 2010, DNB 1003904564 .
literature
- Grote, Udo, The Treasure of St. Viktor . Medieval treasures from the Xanten Cathedral, Regensburg 1998
- Hilger, Hans-Peter, The Xanten Cathedral and its art treasures . With new contributions to the cathedral treasure, archive and library by Udo Grote, (The Blue Books), 3rd verb. Ed., Königstein i. T. 2007
- Rose, Cornelia / Schalles, Hans: Das Stift von Xanten (Guide of the Regional Museum Xanten, No. 22), Cologne 1986
Web links
- www.stiftsmuseum-xanten.de - Website of the StiftsMuseum Xanten
Individual evidence
- ↑ Claudia Kressin: How did you come up with the idea of building a museum, Mr. Grote? In: nrz.de. October 12, 2015, accessed November 2, 2018 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 39 ′ 45.7 " N , 6 ° 27 ′ 9.9" E