Adolf Greverade

Possible portrait of Adolf Greverade, detail from Bernt Notke's Gregor's Mass

Possible portrait of Heinrich Greverade, Adolf's nephew and executor of the will, detail from Gregory's mass

Adolf Greverade , also: Odolfus , Alf , Greverode (* around 1452 in Lübeck ; † January 1501 in Löwen ) was initially a merchant, then a clergyman, humanist and founder.

Life

Greverade came from a family of Lübeck merchants and councilors, whose ancestors probably immigrated from Greverath . He was the son of Heinrich Greverade († 1468/9); His brother († 1500) and an uncle, whose estate administrator Adolf acted as his administrator, were also called that. On September 19, 1477, the brothers Adolf and Heinrich , who had been under the tutelage of their uncle Heinrich and later councilor Hermann Claholt since the death of their father, were declared of legal age by the Lübeck council; at this point in time they had to be 25 years old according to Lübeck law . The family is considered typical of the social advancement of immigrants in Lübeck in the 15th century; it formed the core of the Greveradenkompanie named after it , a guild of merchants, which is characterized by research as a reservoir for promising and promising large merchants .

In 1484 Adolf was put on record as the administrator of his uncle of the same name, alderman Alf Greverade († 1481). At that time and probably until 1494, he and his brother were the owner of an exchange bank and trade to the west, especially to Bruges . Then, however, he decided on a spiritual career and enrolled on September 4, 1495 at the University of Leuven . In 1497 he received after a nomination by Pope Alexander VI. a canonical at Lübeck Cathedral . In the same year his nephews Heinrich (the younger) and Ludolf, the sons of his brother Heinrich, came to see him in Leuven as students.

Adolf Greverade was the addressee of a letter from Erasmus von Rotterdam dated December 18, 1497 or 1498. In the letter, Erasmus, who did not know Adolf Greverade personally but had heard of him through the Lübeck student Heinrich Northoff living with him, praised Adolf because of him special proximity to the church father Jerome and invited him to work on an edition of the works of Jerome.

Foundations

During his lifetime and through his will, Adolf Greverade took care of foundations in two Lübeck churches and provided them with works of art of European standing. His father was already one of the founders of the Marientiden - / Sängerkapelle in the Marienkirche in 1462 . But with the generation of Adolf and his brother Heinrich some of the most spectacular pious foundations to the churches of the Hanseatic city are connected .

Vicarie and altar in St. Marien

The chapel under the north tower of the Marienkirche was consecrated on March 3, 1493 to the Holy Cross , the Virgin Mary , the Evangelist John and St. Jerome. On February 23, 1494, Adolf and his brother Heinrich donated a vicarie at the altar erected in the northeast corner of the chapel. In the same year the altar received a diptych painted by Hermen Rode as a retable .

Exterior view of the altar by Hermen Rode (burned in 1942)

As early as May 17, 1494, a second vicarie was donated to this altar from the estate of the goldsmith Dietrich Loff, who died in 1489, and Adolf Greverade was one of his executors. The chapel was still named after the Holy Cross in 1539 because a votive mass for the Holy Cross was celebrated in it every Friday until the Reformation was introduced in 1531 ; later, in addition to the other original name as Greveraden Chapel, the name Orgelkapelle occurs, as the staircase to the large organ was located on its south side. In 1761 the altar was demolished and an artistically crafted brass grille surrounding it was sold for its metal value. The altarpiece was initially preserved, but was hung several times; last the diptych, restored by Carl Julius Milde in 1846, hung on the north wall of the Marientidenkapelle (confessional chapel) from 1904, where it burned in 1942. The closed 1.64 m high and 1.88 m wide altarpiece showed on the outside in grisaille under a low curved pointed arch with a view of three radiant side chapels, the cartridge of the Greveraden chapel and its altar: in the middle Christ on the cross, on his right Mary and John, on the other side Saint Jerome, kneeling with his stone-reinforced right hand, strikes the bare chest, as well as the year 1494 and the Latin inscription: Aspice qui transis quia ti mihi causa doloris (German: Look here, the you pass because you are the cause of my pain ). The inside of the wing depicted the death of Maria in a bourgeois furnished room . The twelve apostles perform the ecclesiastical blessing of the recently deceased Mother of God, to whom an angel turns a blind eye, while the transfigured figure of the deceased is led up to heaven by four angels. The apostles carrying the coffin can be seen through an arched window opening. The central panel showed a crucifixion rich in figures. Here, too, the patron saint of the altar was St. Jerome, who was caste in front of the image of the crucified. The background was filled by a mountainous landscape with a view of Jerusalem, which was based on Bernhard von Breydenbach's description of Jerusalem published in 1486 .

Gregor's Mass

Gregor's Mass

Presumably as an epitaph for Adolf Greverade and as part of his will, one of the most admired and described works of art in St. Mary's Church until its destruction in 1942 was created: the Gregory Mass , named after Pope Gregory I kneeling in front of the altar , and created by Bernt Notke .

The panel with the Gregor's mass painted in oil on chalk ground was 2.50 m high and 3.57 m wide. The picture will initially have hung in the family chapel under the north tower. When it was first mentioned in writing in 1666 and in the following century, it hung on the south wall of the southern chapel of the ambulatory, later it came (back) to the Greveraden and from there to the Bergenfahr chapel between the towers; Since its restoration by Johannes Nöhring in 1895, it has been hanging again in the ambulatory, where it burned in 1942.

Vicarie and altar in the cathedral

The Greveraden Altar

On April 30, 1504, Bishop Dietrich II. Arndes Hinrich Greverade and the other executors of Adolf Greverade confirmed the foundation of a vicarie in Lübeck Cathedral . With endowment capital of 600 marks Lübsch , it was settled in the north-facing Marienkapelle of the cathedral, the fourth chapel from the west. For this purpose, one of the two older vicarages there was moved from this chapel. The vicariate received the titulus of the Holy Cross and Saints John the Baptist , Hieronymus, Blasius and Aegidius . A little later a nova preciosa tabula , i.e. a new beautiful altarpiece, is mentioned. This is a passion altar from 1491, a late work by Hans Memling, who died in 1494 .

The basic form of the double triptych, which is 2.05 m high and 1.50 m wide, consists of a total of nine individual panels. If the shrine is completely closed, an annunciation can be seen in grisaille painting. In the first change, the four double-articulated inner wings show the four holy cartridges, of which Blasius on the left and Aegidius on the right occupy the back of the first pair of wings, while Johannes on the left and Hieronymus on the right take the outside of the second pair of wings. In the second change, the main panel with a multi-figure crucifixion and the inner sides of the second pair of wings become visible, with a cross on the left and burial and resurrection on the right.

Greveradenkapelle in the cathedral, barrier from 1769

The altar, which soon became a sight, was lithographically reproduced by Carl Julius Milde and Erwin and Otto Speckter as early as 1825 at the suggestion of Carl Friedrich von Rumohr and then reproduced many times, initially remained in its place for centuries. The chapel, which was under the administration of the Greveraden and Warneböken Foundation , received a new barrier in 1769 using parts of the Gothic brass grille according to a plan by the council builder Johann Adam Soherr . The rest of the brass was sold to the council founder Johann Hinrich Armowitz . Two putti with a cross and a Bible frame the Greverade family coat of arms. In 1883 the walls of the chapel were covered with glass plates ; the following year it received a new painting.

In the 20th century, the altar was in the public interest several times: After offers to buy the altar had been made in the 1920s, the city of Lübeck had the ownership structure of the art objects in Lübeck churches clarified by means of an expert opinion in 1930 . As a result, the property of the Greveraden and Warmböken Foundation , represented by the foundation administration of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, was recorded. In 1939 the altar was sent as an act of National Socialist cultural foreign policy to the general exhibition of Memling in Bruges. In this context, however, the city administration pointed out that it was only acting as a trustee for the foundation and that a permanent surrender of the altar, as requested by National Socialist officials, was not an option. After his return to Lübeck, the altar remained in its transport box for the duration of the Second World War , which saved it from destruction. In 1948, the then bishop Johannes Pautke brought about the sale of the altar again in order to cover the immense costs of saving the Lübeck churches that had been destroyed in the war. However, in the same year as the foundation administrator, the city gave the altar to the collection of the St. Anne's Museum , where it is exhibited to this day, while all other winged altars from the cathedral have returned there.

literature

• Uwe Albrecht (ed.): Corpus of medieval wood sculpture and panel painting in Schleswig-Holstein. Volume I, Hanseatic City of Lübeck, St. Annen Museum. Kiel 2005. # 31 Architectural fragments from the former high altar retable in St. Mary's Church from 1425, ISBN 3933598753 , pp. 261–271
• Uwe Albrecht, Ulrike Nürnberger, Jan Friedrich Richter , Jörg Rosenfeld, Christiane Saumweber: Corpus of medieval wood sculpture and panel painting in Schleswig-Holstein, Volume II: Hanseatic City of Lübeck, the works in the urban area. Ludwig, Kiel 2012. # * 13 Crucifixion Altar (so-called Greveraden Altar) , pp. 501–510; # * 23 Gregorsmesse , pp. 540–549. ISBN 3-933598-76-1
• F. Hirsch, G. Schaumann, Friedrich Bruns : The architectural and art monuments of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck. Issued by the building authorities. Volume II: Petrikirche. Marienkirche. Heili.-Geist-Hospital. Verlag von Bernhard Nöhring, Lübeck 1906 ( digitized version), p. 171 (chapel), 216f (altar), 320–322 (Gregorsmesse)
• Johannes Baltzer , Friedrich Bruns: The architectural and art monuments of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck. Issued by the building authorities. Volume III: Church of Old Lübeck. Dom. Jakobikirche. Aegidia Church. Verlag von Bernhard Nöhring, Lübeck 1920 Unchanged reprint 2001: ISBN 3-89557-167-9 , pp. 63–66 (on the chapel); 143–146 (to the altar)
• Peter G. Bietenholz: Adolf Greverade of Lübeck. In: Contemporaries of Erasmus. A biographical register of the Renaissance and Reformation. Toronto / Buffalo / London: University iof Toronto press 1986 ISBN 0-8020-2571-4 , Sp. 127-130
• Andrea Boockmann: The destroyed painting of the 'Gregory Mass' by Bernt Notke in the Marienkirche and the stay of Cardinal Raimundus Peraudi in Lübeck 1503 . In: Journal of the Association for Lübeck History and Archeology (ZVLGA). Volume 81, 2001, pp. 105-122.
• Georg Wilhelm Dittmer : The Lübeck families Greverade and Warneböke in the sixteenth century: a contribution to the cultural history of this time. Lübeck 1859
• Theodor Gaedertz : Hans Memling and his altar shrine in Lübeck Cathedral. Leipzig: Engelmann 1883 ( digitized version )
• Hans Schröder : The Passion Altar of Hans Memling in the Lübeck Cathedral. Leipzig: Bibliographical Institute 1937
• Kerstin Petermann: Bernt Notke . Berlin: Reimer 2000, ISBN 3-496-01217-X , pp. 249-251

Web links

Commons : Greverade family  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Die Greveraden (Lübsche Sage)  - Sources and full texts

• Search for Greverade in the SPK digital portal of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Antje Kathrin Grassman: The Greve Raden company. One of the leading merchant companies in Lübeck at the turn of the 16th century. In: Stuart Jenks and Michael North (eds.): Der Hansische Sonderweg? Contributions to the social and economic history of the Hanseatic League (sources and representations of the Hanseatic history NF 39) Cologne etc: Böhlau 1993, pp. 109-134
2. ↑ Entry 1493 in the Rostock matriculation portal
3. ↑ Entry 1493 in the Rostock matriculation portal
4. ↑ Ep 141, see Bietenholz (Lit.)
5. ↑ later church lawyer, brother of the businessman Christian Northoff .
6. ↑ Tamara Thiesen: Benedikt Dreyer - The work of the late Gothic carver. Kiel 2007, ISBN 978-3-937719-57-3 , p. 48
7. ↑ Description according to BuKD II, p. 216f
8. ↑ BuKD III, pp. 65f
9. ↑ Expert report on the ownership of works of art in Lübeck churches, 1930 submitted by archivist Dr. Finch. With a preliminary remark by Antjekathrin Graßmann. In: Journal of the Association for Lübeck History and Archeology (ZVLGA). Volume 84, 2004, pp. 225-247.
10. ↑ Lübeck offers: Memling-Altar Spiegel -Artikel of July 3, 1948, accessed on June 25, 2010
11. ↑ Description of the altar of the Museumsverband Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg e. V., accessed on January 7, 2016