Madern Gerthener

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Madern Gerthener

Madern Gerthener (also: Gertener ) (* around 1365, † 1430 ) was the city architect of the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt am Main .

Life

Gerthener was the son of a respected Frankfurt stonemason family . His father Johann belonged to the guild like the son , the family lived on the Kornmarkt in the mid-14th century. After his father's death in 1391, Madern Gerthener took over his workshop and in 1396 acquired the Karthäuserhof in the nearby Weißadlergasse .

Around 1390 Gerthener was on the move for several years, probably studying at the Ulm Minster and at the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague from members of the Parler master builder family , which was of outstanding importance in the second half of the 14th century. Gerthener returned to Frankfurt in 1392 at the latest and joined the city as a stonemason in 1395.

Presumably at the end of the 1390s, Gerthener rose to become the city master builder of Frankfurt, responsible for the city's construction tasks, especially in the construction of bridges and the defenses. In 1400 and 1427/8 he built the Eschenheim Tower and chiseled the two coat of arms reliefs. Around 1400 he married the wealthy bourgeois daughter Adelheid Gulden zum Schußhan and should have had a high position in the craftsmen since then at the latest, patronized by the main patrician families, to whom he had introduced himself through tombs. 1408–11 and 1414–30, Master Madern led the vaulting of the transept and the construction of the tower at St. Bartholomäus (imperial cathedral), which after his death was continued according to his plan until 1514; the elevations of the tower that have been preserved, however, are likely to come from his students. The attribution of other Frankfurt church buildings, the front side of the Liebfrauenkirche (around 1415–30) and the choir of St. Leonhard (around 1426–34), is based solely on stylistic comparisons. Outside the city of Frankfurt, the construction management of the Oppenheimer Katharinenkirche is documented in 1414, payment by King Ruprecht of the Palatinate in 1407 is not specified. The work as a builder and sculptor in Mainz , Speyer and Heidelberg , which was also mostly accepted , is likely for stylistic reasons.

In 1419 Gerthener traveled to Strasbourg to provide an expert opinion for the further construction of the cathedral tower after the death of Ulrich von Ensingen .

Buildings

Because there are no documents, Gerthener's management can only be assumed for some buildings because of his position as city architect or based on stylistic similarities.

In Frankfurt

  • Old bridge , reconstruction of a bridge arch destroyed by ice drifts in 1398/99
  • Canvas house , municipal trading house, 1397–99 (presumed)
  • Conversion of the patrician houses Römer and Goldener Schwan to the new town hall of the city, from 1405 (presumed)
  • Fronhofturm (powder tower) at the Dominican monastery , defense tower, 1406-08 (presumed)
  • Niddabrücke in the Frankfurt village of Bonames , 1409-10
  • Nürnberger Hof (residential building of the von Glauburg patrician family; trade fair district of the Nuremberg cloth merchants): only the rebuilt gate passage, Braubachstraße 31, around 1410 (attribution) is preserved
  • City wall, reinforcement work between Bockenheimer Tor (today Opernplatz ) and Main, 1411
  • St. Bartholomäus (Imperial Cathedral) , transept, vaulting 1408–11
  • Gallows or Gallus watchdog of the Frankfurter Landwehr, 1414 (presumed)
  • St. Bartholomäus (Imperial Cathedral), tower, 1415–30
  • Liebfrauenkirche , south facade (face to Liebfrauenberg ) with Dreikönigsportal, around 1415–30 (attribution)
  • Eschenheimer Turm , city gate, including the coat of arms reliefs, 1400; 1426-28
  • Leonhardskirche , high choir, from 1426 (attribution)

Outside of Frankfurt

Sculptures

The officially secured coat of arms reliefs and sculptural work on Gerthener's buildings allow the reconstruction of his sculptural oeuvre.

  • Epitaph for Werner Weiß von Limpurg , † 1395, destroyed (attribution)
  • Tomb for Ludwig and Hert von Holzhausen , † 1383, 1396, St. Bartholomäus (attribution)
  • Self-portrait at the passage of the Eschenheimer Tower, 1400 (attribution)
  • City eagle keystone, St. Bartholomäus, northern Vierungsseitenjoch, 1409
  • Coat of arms consoles and keystones, Nürnberger Hof-Durchfahrt, around 1410 (attribution)
  • Epitaph for Siegfried von Marburg to Paradise, † 1386, around 1410, Alte Nikolaikirche (attribution)
  • Memories gate in Mainz Cathedral, especially Stephanus and Elisabeth, around 1415 (attribution)
  • Wall tabernacle, Frankfurt-Oberrad, Erlöserkirche, around 1415 (attribution)
  • Tomb for Archbishop Johann II , † 1419, Mainz, Cathedral (attribution)
  • King Ruprecht's coat of arms and Engelschlussstein on the Ruprechtsbau , Heidelberg, castle, around 1423 (attribution)
  • South portal of the Liebfrauenkirche : prophets and angelic corbels (not tympanum), around 1424 (attribution)
  • Imperial and city arms on the Eschenheim tower, 1427

Appreciation

Contrary to the theses of Johann Josef Böker, the rich documentary tradition and thorough style-critical work show that Madern Gerthener was the most important Middle Rhine artist of the late Gothic, whose innovative formal language (rod tracery, arched ribs, etc.) dynamized the architectural limbs and set him apart from the other "star architects" differs around 1400. His main work - the Frankfurt Dom Tower - combines, similar to his sculptural work, the sculptural design of the building with a visual effect. The scope of his work as an architect and sculptor has repeatedly led to the consideration of whether his work should not be understood more in the context of a company based on the division of labor with sculptors and stonemasons, whereby one referred to the documented parliaments. While they had no independent responsibility for construction work, the wealth of documents in Frankfurt can hardly be combined with this early modern model. But at the memory gate in Mainz Cathedral and at the portal of the Frankfurt Liebfrauenkirche, one can observe that Master Madern worked with a sculptor from Mainz who first met the tomb of Anna von Dalberg († 1420) in the Oppenheim Katharinenkirche. In other cases one can assume rather preparatory work by his journeymen. As Friedhelm Wilhelm Fischer has already shown, Gerthener's architecture was the main model for the Middle Rhine and beyond until the end of the 15th century. His influence as a sculptor was not so strong, as Gerthener was in competition and in exchange with Mainz artists.

Exhibitions

On the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of the Frankfurt Cathedral Tower, an exhibition Madern Gerthener and the parish tower of St. Bartholomew: 600 years of Frankfurt Cathedral Tower took place in 2015 in the Frankfurt Cathedral Museum .

literature

  • Gerhard Ringshausen : Madern Gerthener. Life and work according to the documents . Diss. University of Göttingen 1969.
  • Friedhelm Fischer:  Gertener, Madern. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 331 ( digitized version ).
  • Ernst-Dietrich Haberland: Madern Gerthener "the city of Franckenfurd Werkmeister". Builder and sculptor of the late Gothic. Knecht, Frankfurt 1992, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 331
  • Gerhard Ringshausen: Madern Gerthener, Frankfurt's great architect and sculptor of the late Gothic (Studies on Frankfurt History 62). Henrich Editions, Frankfurt 2015. ISBN 978-3-9434-0735-8 . See the detailed review by Franz Bischoff in: Journal für Kunstgeschichte 19, 2015, pp. 317–327.
  • Bettina Schmitt and Ulrike Schubert (eds.): Madern Gerthener and the parish tower of St. Bartholomäus: 600 years of the Frankfurt cathedral tower . Schnell und Steiner publishing house, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3795430801

Web links

Commons : Madern Gerthener  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Gisela Kniffler: The grave monuments of the Archbishops of Mainz from the 13th to the early 16th century (dissertations on art history 7), Cologne 1978, p. 51 ff.
  2. ^ On Johann Josef Böker and Julian Hanschke: A tower plan by Ulrich von Ensingen for the Frankfurt parish tower. In: Insitu - Zeitschrift für Architekturgeschichte 2, 2010, pp. 149–160; Johann Josef Böker: Madern Gerthener and the question of the authorship of the Frankfurt cathedral tower plans. In: Insitu - Zeitschrift für Architekturgeschichte 8, 2016, pp. 163–180, cf. the criticism of Gerhard Ringshausen: New hypotheses on the history of the Frankfurt cathedral tower. In: Kunstchronik 70, 2017, pp. 414–422
  3. ↑ See Peter Kurmann: “Star architects” of the 14th and 15th centuries in a European context. In: Europe in the late Middle Ages. Politics - Society - Culture, ed. by Rainer C. Schwinges u. a. (Historical magazine, supplements [NF] 40), 2005, pp. 539–557
  4. ↑ See Walther Karl Zülch: Frankfurter Künstler 1223–1700 (publication of the historical commission of the city of Frankfurt am Main 10), Frankfurt 1935
  5. ↑ Cf. Friedhelm Wilhelm Fischer: The late Gothic church architecture on the Middle Rhine 1410–1520 illustrated with characteristic examples, arranged according to schools and linked with historical-topographical explanations (Heidelberger Kunstgeschichtliche Abhandlungen, NF 7), Heidelberg 1962
  6. ↑ Cf. Juliane von Fircks: Madern Gerthener as a sculptor? In: Madern Gerthener and the parish tower of St. Bartholomäus. Munich 2015, pp. 30–33


personal data
SURNAME Gerthener, Madern
BRIEF DESCRIPTION City architect of the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt am Main, late Gothic sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH around 1360
DATE OF DEATH 1430