Old town church St. Martin (Pforzheim)

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Pforzheim, old town church St. Martin, choir in the east

The Protestant Old Town Church of St. Martin , also known as the Old Town Church, is the oldest church in Pforzheim . It is located in the center of the old town and combines components from Romanesque and Gothic times as well as from the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Monument Foundation Baden-Württemberg named the church Monument of the Month for December 2014 .

history

As early as the 7th century, in Franconian times, the first wooden church was built near the ford over the Enz over the foundations of a Roman building. At the beginning of the 12th century, a Romanesque pillar basilica was built in its place , of which a tympanum is still preserved in today's tower vestibule. The relief with a figure interpreted as Christ, two cats, a rooster and apotropaic wickerwork was originally located above the west portal. Around 1350, when the church was under the control of Lichtenthal Abbey, the Romanesque choir was demolished and replaced by a Gothic one. The Gothic frescoes in the choir (approx. 1430) show the depictions of the Last Judgment on the north wall with Christ as the judge of the world and Mary and John with the risen dead in the topmost field. Among them are the blessed and the damned, who are led to the left by Peter into paradise or to the right by devils in the jaws of hell flanked by fangs. Finally, a volume with Christ as the central figure and the twelve apostles. On the south wall above, Saint Barbara next to Saint Sebastian and the apocalyptic Mary as the Madonna in protective cloak - above, separated by a frieze, the Trinity in which God the Father holds his long sword of judgment over the scene. In the eastern zone of St. Wendelin and below that of St. Barbara and Ottilia . At the end of 1359, the abbess in Lichtental sold the church's sacristan office to the Hirsau monastery .

  • Tympanum Romanesque with Solomon's Knot right and left, center bust figure with mustache about quatrefoil knot -mounted. The sun wheel under the animal figure, interpreted as a cock, can also be found on the Owl Tower in Hirsau and St. Peter and Paul (Oberderdingen) .

  • Choir fresco north wall Last Judgment

  • Choir fresco north wall Christ and apostles

  • Choir south wall total fresco

  • Choir south wall fresco with St. Barbara and St. Sebastian

  • Fresco Maria

  • Choir south side console with grotesque next to St. Barbara

  • South wall east of the window of St. Wendelin

  • South side tower epitaph of the Beckh family 17th century with sheet mask . Inscription: How would all die in Adam So would be made in / Chr (is) o against life

  • Nave Romanesque column with apotropaic block frieze

  • Choir inside tracery window with fish bladder

  • Tympanum with Romanesque portal 1910

Merian -Stich, Pforzheim 1643 with location of the old town church P

In the middle of the 16th century, the Reformation was introduced in the margraviate of Baden-Durlach by Margrave Karl II . The old town church became a Protestant parish church; the altars disappeared and were partially replaced by baroque epitaphs, the wall paintings were whitewashed (and only exposed again in 1946). After the church was burned down by Bavarian troops in 1645, it was rebuilt in a simplified manner. In 1824 the nave was demolished and replaced by a classical building (architect Karl August Schwarz ). Instead of the damaged tower, a neo-Gothic sandstone tower with a five-part bell was built in 1874. During the air raid on Pforzheim on February 23, 1945 , the church was largely destroyed and rebuilt between 1949 and 1952.

Tympanum

Christoph Timm refers to the first predecessor buildings of the church in the Lombard - Carolingian - Franconian times. A pillar basilica was built around 1100 instead of the pre-Romanesque building . The tympanum above the west portal, a valuable remnant of the basilica, belongs to this building. In the middle of the tympanum, the bust of a man protrudes from below into the picture surface. The head shows archaic features. Its conical shape with stripe-like hair, its close-set almond-shaped eyes and its very long mustache point to Irookeltic models. A loop ornament hovers over the head from a circle, inside of which four semicircles coming from all sides intersect as a symbol of infinity. Three lanceolate leaves stand side by side on the upper edge of the central circle in the center line of the tympanum. Facing the sickle wreath, a lion stands with its tail drawn in. On his chest sits a bird that can be identified as a rooster or hen through a comb and wattles. On the other side of the circular ornament is a bird similar in size to the lion, with its wing raised, probably a rooster. He too is turned towards the circular ornament. A small cross floats in front of his chest. Below the rooster lies a small lion on a chain, which almost touches the tip of the beard and the shoulder of the male bust with its rear part. A wheel cross under the rooster gives the impression of an egg laid. The tympanum in the old town church is one of the earliest figured arched door fields in Germany.

  • Tympanum west tower

  • Horned figure above the door of the cloister of Vaison-la-Romaine . The only stylistic parallel to the bust figure of the tympanum

  • Celtic prince Glauberg with three lanceolate leaves like a wattle tympanum

  • Tympanum west tower detail of Solomon's knot and wheel cross

Church life

The old town is located in the multicultural eastern part of Pforzheim in the immediate vicinity of the municipal clinic. Today find u. a. Services of the Serbian Orthodox Church also take place. Church services in easy language and a Café Himmelreich are also offered.

literature

  • Open the beautiful gate for me. Commemorative publication 50 years of dedication of the rebuilt old town church in Pforzheim. Pforzheim 2001 ( PDF file ).
  • Christoph Timm: Pforzheim - cultural monuments in the city area (= monument topography Baden-Württemberg; 2.10). Theis, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 978-3-89735-221-6 .

Web links

Commons : Old Town Church of St. Martin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrike Kalbaum, Romanesque lintels and tympana in southwest Germany: Studies on their form, function and iconography, Waxmann Verlag 2011, p. 197
  2. ↑ Annelise Seeliger-Zeiss: Ev. Old Town Parish Church (St. Martin). Inscription catalog: City of Pforzheim, 2003, accessed on November 30, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Evangelical old town Pforzheim: Our old town church. Retrieved November 11, 2018 .

Coordinates: 48 ° 53 ′ 27.3 "  N , 8 ° 42 ′ 47.2"  E