Princely Mausoleum (Stadthagen)

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The Prince's mausoleum at the choir of St. Martini's Church

The princely mausoleum at the St. Martini Church in Stadthagen in the Schaumburg district is a total work of art consisting of architecture , sculpture and painting , which is recognized as having international significance. The mausoleum planned by Prince Ernst von Holstein-Schaumburg († 1622) for himself, his wife Hedwig von Hessen-Kassel and his parents since 1607 and started in 1620 was completed by Hedwig a few years after his death. The design was created by Giovanni Maria Nosseni († 1620), the construction and interior decoration were done by Anton Boten . The 13 bronze sculptures and 6 bronze reliefs of the central monument are mature works by the important Dutch artist Adriaen de Vries - the only ones that can still be seen in their original context. The building and furnishings have been preserved in their original state and offer an authentic picture of the sense of style and worldview of a ruling prince between the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War in Protestant northern Germany .

history

Stadthagen has been the residence of the Counts of Schauenburg and Holstein since the 13th century . In the local Franciscan church , later in the parish church of St. Martin several members of the House Schaumburg Been buried. Although Ernst moved the residence to Bückeburg in 1607 , he chose the place east of the choir apex of the Martinikirche for his mausoleum . The first plans were made in the same year 1607. After Ernst had obtained the title of imperial prince from Emperor Ferdinand II in 1619 , the mausoleum should also reflect this rank. Construction began in 1620 and was completed by his widow after his death in 1622.

Ernst had his father Otto IV († 1576) and his second wife, his mother Elisabeth Ursula von Braunschweig-Lüneburg († 1586), reburied in the vaulted crypt under the mausoleum, accessible from the church . Otto's first wife Maria von Pomerania-Stettin († 1554) and her son Adolf , Ernst's half-brother and predecessor († 1601), were left in the crypt under the church. Until the construction of the Bückeburg mausoleum in 1915, the crypt of the Stadthagen mausoleum was the family burial place of the Schaumburg-Lippe family .

The building and equipment remained undamaged in the Thirty Years' War, although Stadthagen suffered from serious fires and looting. The mausoleum was also spared during the war and emergency of the following centuries. In 2006–2010 it was faithfully restored with public and private funds.

Exterior construction

Look into the dome

The mausoleum, kept in the strict forms of the Italian Renaissance , is a heptagonal central building made of Obernkirchen sandstone, 24 m high and 10 m in diameter. The seven wall surfaces are continued in the seven segments of the flat, copper-covered dome and in the crowning lantern . The entrance side, which faces the church and is connected to it by a low corridor, is flanked by two window walls. The other four wall surfaces are provided with blind arches . Pilasters with Corinthian capitals mark the corners . Cornices divide the building horizontally into a low base storey, the high main building, a band with the Latin inscription in golden capitals and the roof zone with the dome.

Interior

The tomb and resurrection monument of Adriaen de Vries

On the four windowless wall surfaces opposite the entrance are four high aedicules with Italian marble columns. They frame simple inscribed epitaph plates for Prince Ernst, his wife Hedwig and his parents Otto and Elisabeth. Their coats of arms are placed above the gables, held by putti . The corners of the building are marked, as on the outside, with Corinthian pilasters, which here are provided with pseudo - fluting . Paintings by Anton Boten hang under the two windows: The Revival of the Dead Bones of Israel ( Ez 37  EU ) and The Raising of Lazarus ( Joh 11  EU ).

The seven vault segments are each painted with two music-making angels in front of a white, cloudy blue sky and framed with decorative ribbons. The angels play contemporary musical instruments such as theorbo , dulcian and pommer . Above it opens the lantern, the ceiling of which shows the Schaumburg nettle leaf coat of arms in the center of a seven-pointed star and seven angel heads. Indirect daylight comes in through their windows.

The central piece of equipment is the prince's grave monument created by Adriaen de Vries 1613–1620 in the center of the room, to which the ornate concentric diamond pattern of the floor is also aligned. On an altar-like substructure and a flat base, carried by four bronze lions, stands the alabaster sarcophagus of Prince Ernst, which is, however, a cenotaph because Ernst is buried in the crypt under the mausoleum. Four bronze reliefs are embedded in the substructure: the prince's coat of arms and the allegorical deities Victoria , Abundantia and Fama . The sarcophagus shows a portrait medallion of the prince on the front and Chronos with hourglass and sickle on the back . The resurrected Christ stands larger than life on the sarcophagus , his right hand raised as a blessing, the left hand holding the cross flag. Four putti sit at his feet, some of them marked by quills , some by their gestures as heralds of the Easter event. The four life-size Roman soldiers with weapons and insignia in their hands, who sit on the four sides of the sarcophagus, are highly expressive. Commissioned by Pontius Pilate to guard the tomb of Jesus ( Mt 27 : 62-66  EU ), they fell asleep while sitting. Only one of them looks frightened backwards and upwards to the risen one, whose shine of light has awakened and blinded him.

Anton Boten's pictures and even more Adriaen de Vries' expressive sculptures show the sense of style of Mannerism , which already points to the Baroque .

Interpretative approaches

The mausoleum is designed as a memorial for the life and virtues of those buried in it, especially Prince Ernst; This is served by the architectural and artistic effort as a whole and the four epitaph tables with their texts in detail. In addition, it is a testimony to Christ-centered resurrection faith . In the Easter scene of the central monument, the prince's cenotaph is also the tomb of Christ, from which he rises. The scene thus becomes an illustration of Pauline statements such as Rom. 6.5  EU .

Various interpretations have been attempted for the very unusual heptagonal shape of the mausoleum. In purely practical terms, the number seven of the walls results from the symmetrical arrangement of the four epitaph walls opposite the entrance and the two window walls. Biblically Christian, the seven from the creation story to the Revelation of John is the number of completion . After all, the seven also has a special meaning in the Rosicrucian Movement , with which Prince Ernst was demonstrably in contact.

literature

Sources and older literature

Recent research

  • Marie-Theres Suermann: On the building history and iconography of the Stadthagen mausoleum. In: Low German Contributions to Art History 22 (1983), pp. 67–90.
  • Monika Meine-Schawe: New research on the mausoleum in Stadthagen. In: Karin Tebbe, Monika Meine-Schawe, Ulrike Hanschke: "... us and our descendants for glory and honor". Works of art in the Weser area and their clients. Materials on art and cultural history in northern and western Germany, vol. 6. Jonas, Marburg 1992, ISBN 3-89445-143-2 , pp. 69-132.
  • Karin Tebbe: Epitaphs in the county of Schaumburg. The visualization of the political order in the church. Materials on art and cultural history in northern and western Germany, vol. 18. Jonas, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-89445-188-2 , chapter: The mausoleum in Stadthagen. Pp. 134-152.
  • Dorothea Schröder : The “ Angel Concert ” in the mausoleum of Stadthagen. In: Heiner Borggrefe, Barbara Uppenkamp (Hrsg.): Art and representation. Studies on European court culture in the 16th century. Materials on the history of art and culture in Northern and Western Germany, vol. 29. Weser Renaissance Museum, Castle Brake, Lemgo 2002, ISBN 3-9807816-1-5 , pp. 151–180.
  • Andrea Baresel-Brand: funerary monuments of northern European royal houses in the Renaissance era 1550–1650. Ludwig, Kiel 2007, ISBN 978-3-937719-18-4 , chapter 7.2: Stadthagen, an St. Martin: Mausoleum for Prince Ernst von Holstein-Schaumburg (1569–1622) and family (plans since 1607/08; inscription 1620 ). Pp. 230–240 and notes from p. 369 (preview on Google Books).
  • Schaumburger Landschaft (Ed.), Sigmund Graf Adelmann (Red.): New contributions to Adriaen de Vries. Lectures at the Adriaen-de-Vries Symposium from April 16 to 18, 2008 in Stadthagen and Bückeburg. Kulturlandschaft Schaumburg, Vol. 14. Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-89534-714-6 . In this:
    • Lars Olof Larsson : The mausoleum in Stadthagen. A unique monument to early modern grave culture. Pp. 27-39.
    • Dorothea Diemer: Questions of the artistic planning and realization of the mausoleum. Pp. 41-69.
    • Frits Scholten: Adriaen de Vries's Resurrection Group at Stadthagen. The Iconography and Meaning of the Monumental, Freestanding Risen Christ. Pp. 71-87.
    • Sven Hauschke: Considerations on material and type. The grave monument of Count Ernst von Holstein-Schaumburg by Adriaen de Vries in Stadthagen. Pp. 89-99.

Web links

Commons : Mausoleum (Stadthagen)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ schaumburg.de ( Memento from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b Inscription on the mausoleum:
    MONUMENTUM PRIN [CIPIS] ERNESTI COMIT [IS] H [OLSTEIN-] S [CHAUMURGENSIS]
    QUOD A [NN] O M.DC.XX. À VIVO CŒPTUM,
    TERTIO POST ILLUSTRISS [IMI] ABSOLVIT VIDUA HEIDEWIGIS.
    "Tomb of Prince Ernst, Count of Holstein-Schaumburg,
    which, begun in 1620 by the living, was completed
    in the third year after Hedwig, the widow of the most illustrious."
  3. ↑ a b Mausoleum receives a bronze plaque , Schaumburger Nachrichten , September 14, 2012.
  4. ↑ weserrenaissance-stadthagen.de

Coordinates: 52 ° 19 '24.2 "  N , 9 ° 12' 26.1"  E