Fountain of Justice (Frankfurt am Main)
The Justice Fountain (also Justitiabrunnen ) is a fountain on the Römerberg in Frankfurt am Main and one of the city's landmarks . It goes back to a previous building from 1543 in the same place and was built in its current form in 1611. During the time of the Holy Roman Empire , it played a special, albeit short-term role as a wine fountain for the emperor and then also for the people during the coronation ceremony . The fountain currently visible is a largely detailed copy from 1887 that was financed by the Frankfurt wine merchant Gustav D. Manskopf . It is a listed building .
history
Prehistory and predecessor construction
The earliest and simplest form of urban wells were draw wells , which were also very easy to implement in the old town of Frankfurt am Main due to the high groundwater level. Although they have certainly been widespread for a long time, they are not mentioned in a document before 1259, the related professions of “bornmecher” and “bornfeger” then for the first time in the city tax books from 1328.
The oldest traditions on the subject of a more modern “flowing borne” , i.e. a fountain , go back to the Frankfurt historian Achilles Augustus von Lersner . In his chronicle, Lersner reported at the beginning of the 18th century about a pipe that was laid in 1453 from the Mainzer Tor , i.e. directly west of today's Hermann-Schlosser-Haus , to a fountain at the Old Nikolaikirche . The then head of the Frankfurt City Archives , Georg Ludwig Kriegk , was able to refute the accuracy of this information as early as 1871. By contrast, it was confirmed by him that the council appointed a committee in the same year, which should deal with the possibilities of realizing inner-city fountains - but after the building bills mostly received up to 1944 without results.
Wark was also able to authenticate Lersner's report on the construction of the first well in the center of the Römerberg almost 100 years later thanks to the records of the medieval city administration, which were still completely available at the time : The construction of the line began on February 4, 1541, and, following Lersner, on March 23, 1542 was completed. The diverted water now initially received a provisional drain. According to Lersner, the actual construction work on the Römerberg began on May 17th of the same year in the presence of some council members and was completed by August 18th.
Since Lersner did not state what he got his information from, the aforementioned information must be corrected according to Kriegk from 1542 to 1543, since a draft for the actual well was only available at the end of 1542. This is in the mayor's book of 1543 a. a. described as "smooth on the outside" , the "upper leg of cast work" . This also coincides with a brief from the aforementioned book dated April 1543, according to which the craftsmen were only instructed to manufacture the fountain according to the design. The then city architect Benedikt Löscher is known as the only person involved in the entire work .
The sensation that the fountain caused at the time is best illustrated by a poem that Jakob Micyllus , the head of the city's Latin school at the time , wrote on the occasion of its completion in 1543:
"Annus erat Christi post secula quinque decemque, / Et post Lustra quater, tertius, acta duo, / Cum novus hic veterem fons introductus in urbem, / Implevit liquidos amne fluente lacus, / Prisca licet Graias mirentur tempora lymphas, / Pegase sive tuas, Sisyphe sive tuas, / Hic, ut non aequet tot claros nomine fontes, / Arte tamen nulla deteriore fluit. "
The first fountain is clearly visible on the so-called siege plan from 1552, which was drawn up nine years after its construction, and one of the first depictions of the entire city area. There he already has the octagonal trough, which is still late-Gothic in its individual forms , which is the oldest component of the fountain - albeit now in multiple copies. However, as the renovation in the 19th century showed, it had a larger capacity than it does today, as it measured almost 2.50 meters from the top edge to the bottom of the trough instead of just under one meter today.
A vertical tube with a button protruded from the trough, from the four openings of which the water came. As with other fountains of this time, one has to imagine a water pipe made of fir wood with a tin button underneath .
Renovation and construction of the well in its current form
( copper engraving by Jakob de Zetter and Johann Gelle)
The fountain had to be renovated for the first time in 1594. The council used the opportunity to decorate it with a picture of Samson ripping open the jaws of a defeated lion, as well as jumping tubes. Where exactly the biblical representation was attached, i.e. whether on the trough or on the tube or the button, cannot be clearly determined from the documentary information.
The fact that this is not to be seen on any modern representation speaks against the trough being decorated. In addition, the new jumping tubes, because they were too narrow, constantly froze over in winter, which is why they were soon replaced by wooden ones, which suggests that the representation on them could be seen or connected.
It also remains unclear whether information handed down by Walther Karl Zülch from the master builder's and arithmetic book 1587, which was burned in the Second World War , relates to the previous or subsequent measures. Zülch followed the latter interpretation. According to this, in 1587 a “pattern that was to make the Jumping Bronnen zirlich” was made. The town hall commissioned the “pattern, as itzo is embossed from wood, but in ore and somewhat above with a picture [= plastic] to be made in the factory” .
At the beginning of the 16th century, the Renaissance finally took hold in the city. After the Liebfrauenberg received a magnificent fountain in 1610 , the time for a thorough renovation was probably also seen on the Römerberg. In view of the factual incapacity of Emperor Rudolf II to rule , it is also obvious that the city council expected a new coronation ceremony to take place soon - and rightly so it turned out - and wanted to create a correspondingly representative building on the site of this ceremony.
In 1611 the unchanged fountain trough was given a stone column with statues of sirens and reliefs of virtue, which can still be seen today, even if they are cast bronze ; thereupon the fountain figure of Justitia found place. The artists who worked were the sculptor Johann Hocheisen, who received 200 guilders for his work, and the painter Philipp Uffenbach , whose colorful color scheme was worth 37 guilders to the council. The shape of the new fountain is also well documented, as it was already shown in 1612 in the coronation diary of Emperor Matthias .
The water supply to the Well of Justice
In order to make a fountain "jump", it was usually supplied with water by pipes from a higher point. The difference in altitude then provided the necessary pressure for the water.
( lithograph )
In this context, Frankfurt am Main was in a fortunate position: the entire old town area is, geographically speaking, in a depression. Even short supply lines, which only led from the edge of the medieval district into the old town , already had a steep gradient. The springs, which were able to secure the entire water supply of the city until the 19th century, were located on the Friedberger Feld deep in the Bornheim district, roughly between today's Bornheimer Landstrasse in the north and Merianstrasse in the south.
It is not known when the city first made use of the sources on Friedberger Feld. Georg Ludwig Kriegk ruled out that a line could have been built over long distances before 1543. The administration should have been able to find records of the enormous structural work involved in the pipelines at the time. Bornheim did not come to Frankfurt until 1474. Before that, along with the Bornheimerberg district, it belonged to the county of Hanau , which was hostile to the city.
Even in 1543, no pipeline could have been built to supply the entire city, as it was only started in 1607 according to the plans of a commission of builders specially set up for this purpose. Kriegk reported a complaint from gardeners directly in front of the Friedberger Tor , recorded in 1543 , according to which the new well on the Römerberg consumed the entire water supply of their own well. The solution was to build another supply line. Accordingly, the water pipe of the predecessor of the justice fountain was connected directly to a fountain in front of the Friedberger Tor, which was fed there by a source unknown today.
The justice well built in 1611, on the other hand, is likely to have already been connected to the aforementioned pipeline, which was built from 1607 and brought the water from the sources of Friedberger Feld to the city. The water was extracted there in six well chambers and fed into a main line, which branched into an east and a west line approximately at the level of Eiserner Hand and Friedberger Landstrasse . These ran into the city under the Friedberger and Eschenheimer Tor and supplied around 30 municipal wells here according to a pipeline plan from 1690. The well of justice was almost at the lowest point of the eastern pipe. In total, the sources of Friedberger Feld supplied around 155 cubic meters of water to the city per day.
The role of the fountain in the coronation celebrations
The predecessor of the Fountain of Justice had already served as a source of wine for the first imperial coronation in Frankfurt am Main in 1562, namely Maximilian II . The primary purpose of the wine source was the fulfillment of the ore office , in this case the respective king of Bohemia , who had to give the new emperor a cup of wine as his ore cup-holder during the ceremony . After that, the European nobility mostly left the wine wells to the masses.
On the occasion of the festivities, the trough was covered with an artificial rock group that reached to the top of the column and was decorated with trees, as can be seen in the pictures. A large, two-headed eagle was attached to the Roman and two wooden lions on the sides, from whose mouths the wine sprang. The wine was discharged from a building on the higher Saturday mountain , i.e. the area in front of today's Ostzeile , by means of wooden pipes laid under the pavement .
The adherence to the procedure of releasing the fountain for all people on the Römerberg after the execution of the arch office soon turned out to be a problem with the new, much more filigree fountain. Achilles Augustus von Lersner reported on the incidents at the coronation of Emperor Matthias in 1612:
"Darbey was a great crowd from the people / and everyone who was only able to come here was drunk from it. Since one of them has his hat / the other a mug / the third what he may get / entertained. Some even climbed the well for the sake of advantage / in sum there was such a crowd / that as a result more wine spilled and spilled / than the people might get good. How it finally got there / whether there was still a lot of wine / and still a good run can run / that the impetuous people knocked down the crane / lions and eagles and carried away / and therefore could not be safe from the same / but everything was praised / and then the heroes of the inlaid little tubes were not spared / but pulled out of the earth and taken. "
When the incidents at the coronation of Emperor Ferdinand II repeated themselves and the fountain apparently suffered serious damage, the council decided on a new solution: for the remaining seven imperial coronations that the Holy Roman Empire was to experience, an additional one was added each time Well erected halfway up the Saturday mountain. This consisted of a simple fountain trough, a post in the middle and an attached, colored wooden double-headed eagle, from which the wine leapt.
Similar to the nearby ox roast, this eagle soon developed into a trophy, for which the guilds of the city fought in sometimes bloody arguments in order to adorn their guild rooms. The Historical Museum still has several eagles from coronation celebrations in the 18th century.
Further history of the fountain to the present
Achilles Augustus von Lersner reported the first renovation of the fountain in 1652, during which the Latin inscription of the base of the Justitia was probably added. Another renovation took place after Lersner in 1705, and in 1770 the still wooden jumping tubes were finally replaced by cast iron ones.
(photography by Carl Friedrich Mylius )
(Photography by Albrecht Meydenbauer )
With the decline of the old town from the early 19th century, the fountain also weathered, but above all the figure of Justitia increasingly, frost and weather influences attacked the stone. In 1863, the Justitia was poorly renovated and hidden under flowers for the Frankfurt Princes' Day. The poet Friedrich Stoltze used a mocking poem on her condition for political satire:
“That is woman justice! / Looks like wickedness; / The Wag 'is gone, that God may have mercy, / To the devil with half your arm; / The sword, the symbol of violence, / But it still clings to her. / The Nas' is gone; it was made of stone / it should have been made of wax. / O scarecrow you are right, / You are too bad for Frankfurt! / How about if you send them to Hessen-Kassel once, so fragmented? / And if she had seen the city there, / Could she also go to Hanover; / The police in Berlin too / You can visit them by the way! / And via Breslau from Berlin, / Could you take the train to Vienna! / From there you could go to Paris / There you would be like in paradise! "
( photochrom )
The statue and the fountain column were finally dismantled as early as 1874, photographs from this time only show the fountain trough, which is barely covered with wooden boards. For a long time there were considerations for a new building in the neo-Gothic style, which was popular at the time , for which a dedicated association had even obtained a cost estimate of 30,000 gold marks .
But in 1887 a donation from the Frankfurt wine merchant Gustav D. Manskopf enabled the old well to be completely renovated. In order to prevent weather damage for the future, not only the Justitia, but also the allegorical decoration of the column, based on the remains of the old fountain, were newly created in bronze . The models were created by the sculptor and academy teacher Friedrich Schierholz , while the famous bronze art foundry Lenz in Nuremberg was responsible , at that time under the direction of Christoph Lenz.
Also based on the old model, but in the same material, i.e. red Main sandstone , the trough and the stone substructure of the fountain column were completely replaced. An additional, surrounding decorative grille was created in Alexander Linnemann's workshop . On May 11th, the 26th anniversary of the Peace of Frankfurt , the ceremonial unveiling of the fountain, which was completely copied from the old model except for the material, took place.
During the air raids in March 1944 , the entire area sank to rubble and ashes. The fountain and fountain figure remained almost undamaged, although no measures were taken to protect them. Shortly after the invasion of American soldiers, they dismantled the figure of Justitia and erected it in front of their first headquarters, the metal company building on Reuterweg , until 1947 as a symbol of justice and law .
At the beginning of the 1970s, the fountain had to give way again for the underground and underground parking garage construction on the Dom-Römer area, but was then rebuilt at the old location. During the dismantling process, the wooden foundation under the trough was discovered, the dendrochronological examination of which confirmed Lersner's information - the trunks had been felled in 1542.
The last time the fountain and the Justitia statue were thoroughly renovated was at the end of 2007, as they had been heavily soiled over the years. From May 2017 to October 2018 the statue of Justitia was extensively restored from donations. The sculpture is regularly used by the news broadcasts of several German television stations as a background image for reports on court cases.
description
The fountain stands in the middle of the central Römerberg in front of the town hall . An octagonal trough made of red Main sandstone with a diameter of 6.5 meters forms the substructure . It is separated from the ground level of the Römerberg by two basalt steps . At the corners of the trough are pedestals , which are cranked at the top and bottom with round bar cornices . The surfaces of the pedestals also show mirrors made of intersecting round bars.
The parapet of the trough is profiled on the outer edge with a simple groove and protrudes in place of the pedestals. The trough carries a plaque to the Römer with the inscription Gustav D. Manskopf of his hometown MDCCCLXXXVII . It is also surrounded by an octagonal iron grille framed in black, which contains a gold-plated Frankfurt eagle in four of the eight fields. The lattice, designed in freely historicizing forms, is the only ingredient of the renovation of 1887 that has no historical model.
In the fountain trough stands an unadorned stone pillar on which a bronze cast rests at the level of the parapet . Compared to the broad, bead-like base decorated with an egg stick , the rest of the structure is a bit less. Above several profiles, the corners form Doric pilasters, of whose capitals round arches stretch over the edges . Relief representations of female embodiments of various virtues can be seen in the niches formed in this way. Your Latin name is below. It refers to:
- Justitia , the goddess of justice with sword and scales , gazes at the north side of the Römerberg with unblinded eyes,
- Temperantia, the moderation , when distributing a liquid between two jugs, with a view towards the Saturday mountain or the Römerberg-Ostzeile ,
- Spes, the hope , with a pigeon in his arms, opposite the old Nikolaikirche , as well
- Charitas , love, with two children, one of whom she is nursing, towards the Romans.
justice
moderation
hope
love
There are water-spouting masks over the heads of the virtues, festoons stretched over the corners between the latter . After a new bulge with egg-stick decoration, sirens facing each corner form the penultimate stage of the structure. The breasts they hold in their hands and their mouths serve as gargoyles. A smooth band with the inscription Iustitia in toto virtutum maxima mundo sponte sua tribuit cuilibet aequa suum runs around the edges above the image.
The inscription already refers to the fountain figure above that completes the structure. This is the goddess Justitia with the attributes of the sword and scales. In contrast to most of the other depictions, she is not blindfolded.
iconography
There are no records from the time of its creation or modern studies on the iconography of the fountain. With regard to the embodiment of the virtues, it follows from their visible attributes alone that there is a selection of two cardinal and two theological virtues .
If the four cardinal virtues, i.e. prudence or wisdom , justice , bravery and moderation, were represented, the representations of hope and Charitas could not be assigned iconographically to the remaining prudence or wisdom or bravery. Hope as a woman with a dove, on the other hand, follows the classic representation pattern of theological virtues - contrary to the classic mythological Spes , where she is usually seen with a crow - and above all love as Charitas with children.
Due to the lack of literature, on the other hand, any intentions behind the selection of the virtues from the two groups mentioned, as well as the fact that the crowning figure has always directed his gaze at the town hall of the city, cannot be demonstrably explained. The latter was not only the seat of the city council, but also of the lay judges and criminal courts, the function of which was performed by the councilors in the Middle Ages .
See also
literature
Major works
- Adolf Koch: The Justitia fountain on the Römerberg in Frankfurt am Main. Donated to his hometown by Gustav D. Manskopf on May 10, 1887. Reinhold Baist, Frankfurt am Main 1887.
- Georg Ludwig Kriegk : History of Frankfurt am Main in selected representations. Heyder and Zimmer, Frankfurt am Main 1871, pp. 476-479 ( online ).
- Wendelin Leweke: Frankfurt fountain stories. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-7973-0478-1 , pp. 11-17.
- Siegfried Nassauer: What the Frankfurt fountains tell. An illustrated chronicle. Verlag der Goldsteinschen Buchhandlung, Frankfurt am Main 1921, pp. 346–376.
- Heinz Schomann: The old Frankfurt fountain. Verlag Dieter Fricke, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-88184-022-2 , pp. 26-39.
Further works used
- Thomas Bauer: In the belly of the city. Sewerage and hygiene in Frankfurt am Main 16. – 19. Century. Waldemar Kramer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-7829-0480-X ( Studies on Frankfurt History 41).
- Johann Friedrich Böhmer , Friedrich Lau: Document book of the imperial city Frankfurt. First volume 794-1314. J. Baer & Co, Frankfurt am Main 1901.
- Konrad Bund: Frankfurt am Main in the late Middle Ages 1311–1519. In: Frankfurter Historische Kommission (Ed.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine contributions. (= Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 .
- Otto Donner von Richter : Philipp Uffenbach 1566–1636 and others at the same time in Frankfurt a. M. living painter. In: Association for history and antiquity to Frankfurt am Main (Ed.): Archive for Frankfurt's history and art . Third episode, seventh volume. K. Th. Völcker's Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1901, pp. 1-220.
- Achilles Augustus von Lersner , Florian Gebhard: The far-famous Freyen imperial, electoral and trade city of Franckfurt on Mayn Chronica […]. Self-published, Franckfurt am Mayn 1706 ( online ).
- Achilles Augustus von Lersner, Georg August von Lersner: Postponed, increased, and continued Chronica of the well-known free imperial, election and trade city of Franckfurth am Mayn […]. Self-published, Franckfurt am Mayn 1734 ( online ).
- Volker Rödel: Civil engineering in Frankfurt am Main 1806–1914. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-7973-0410-2 .
- Walther Karl Zülch: Frankfurt artist 1223–1700. Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main 1935 ( publications of the Historical Commission of the City of Frankfurt am Main 10).
References and translations
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heinz Schomann, Volker Rödel, Heike Kaiser: Monument topography city of Frankfurt am Main . Revised 2nd edition, limited special edition on the occasion of the 1200th anniversary of the city of Frankfurt am Main. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7973-0576-1 , p. 67
- ↑ Boehmer, Lau 1901, p. 109, Certificate No. 225, April 29, 1259.
- ↑ Bauer 1998, p. 55 u. 57.
- ↑ Lersner 1734, First Book, p. 22.
- ↑ a b Kriegk 1871, p. 476.
- ↑ a b c Kriegk 1871, p. 477.
- ↑ Lersner 1706, Das Erste Buch, p. 23 u. 24.
- ↑ Zülch 1935, p. 327.
- ↑ Nassauer 1921, p. 350.
- ↑ a b c d Koch 1887, p. 5.
- ↑ Kriegk 1871, p. 478.
- ↑ a b Lersner 1706, Das Erste Buch, p. 24.
- ↑ Zülch 1935, p. 415 and 416.
- ↑ Donner von Richter 1901, p. 137 u. 138.
- ↑ a b Rödel 1983, p. 78.
- ↑ Bauer 1998, p. 61 and 62.
- ↑ Bauer 1998, p. 62.
- ↑ Koch 1887, p. 3 and 4th
- ↑ Lersner 1706, Das Erste Buch, p. 211.
- ↑ Koch 1887, p. 4.
- ↑ Kriegk 1871, p. 479.
- ↑ Nassauer 1921, p. 372.
- ↑ Leweke 1988, p. 13.
- ↑ Nassauer 1921, p. 373.
- ↑ Leweke 1988, p. 16 and 17th
- ↑ Schomann 1981, p. 35.
- ^ Römerberg in Frankfurt: "Justitia" is enthroned again on the fountain of justice . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . October 10, 2018 ( fr.de [accessed October 10, 2018]).
- ↑ Schomann 1981, p. 38.
- ↑ On Frankfurt law in the Middle Ages, see Bund 1991, p. 107 ff.
Translations
-
↑ The German translation in distiches is:
“When after the birth of Christ one counted the past years / thousand, the hundreds five, some forty and three, / the new well was led into the interior of the city, / which fills the wide vessel with flowing current. / May the poets of the ancients admire the Greek source / Which names itself after Pegasus or after Sisyphus / Even ours does not reach the fame of the celebrated names / Is the direction of art really not inferior to them. "
-
↑ The German translation in meter reads:
"Justitia, first and greatest in the world of virtues, with a just hand gives everyone his own."
Web links
- Art in public space Frankfurt: Fountain of Justice (Frankfurt am Main)
- State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hessen
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 37 ″ N , 8 ° 40 ′ 56 ″ E
