Large Zittau Lenten Cloth
The Große Zittauer Lenten cloth is the only surviving fasting cloth of the "field type" in Germany and the third largest known hunger cloth worldwide. It was made in Zittau in 1472 and is now in the Church of the Holy Cross museum there .
description
The fasting cloth is an 8.20 m × 6.80 m (about 56 m²) linen cloth . It shows biblical scenes from the Old and New Testament from creation to the Last Judgment on a total of 90 fields in 10 rows . The representations are applied in tempera (“wet handkerchief painting”).
history
The Lenten Cloth was donated in 1472 by the spice and grain dealer Jacob Gürtler. It was in use in St. John's Church for 200 years and during Lent it separated the sanctuary from the congregation. Its whereabouts were unclear for hundreds of years until it was found again in the Zittau Council Library in 1840 . From there it came to Dresden in 1842 and back to Zittau in 1876.
Shortly before the end of the Second World War, it was relocated to the Oybin . In 1945 Soviet soldiers cut the cloth into four parts and used it to seal a sauna that was temporarily set up in the forest. After the withdrawal, they finally left it in the forest. It was not found again until decades later by Hermann Knobloch and kept under lock and key in the Zittau museum depot. The incidents about the abuse of the cloth by Soviet soldiers were kept secret.
In 1994/95, the Abegg Foundation from Riggisberg in Switzerland restored the Lenten veil, which was badly damaged but still completely intact. Since 1999 it has been located in the secularized Church of the Holy Cross at a location comparable to that in the St. Johannis Church. It is kept there in the largest museum showcase in the world.
In 2015 the documentary film Fastentuch 1472 (93 minutes) by director Bernhard Sallmann was released .
meaning
The Great Zittau Lent Shawl, along with the Bayeux Tapestry, is one of the most impressive textile works of occidental tradition and is the only surviving Lent shawl of the so-called picture-rich field type in Germany.
literature
- Friedhelm Mennekes: The Zittau Bible. Images and texts on the Great Lenten Shroud of 1472. Catholic Biblical Work, 1998
Web links
- Large Zittau Lenten Cloth on Zittau.eu
- Large Zittau Lenten Cloth on textilland-oberlausitz.de
- Via sacra - Large Zittau Lent Cloth from 1472 on youtube.com
- Documentary film "Fastentuch 1472". An early Bible comic from Saxony on deutschlandradiokultur.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Die Zittauer Fastentücher on www.zittau.de
- ↑ List of picture themes (incomplete)
- ↑ see List of Technical Records and Guinness Book of Records
- ↑ Fastentuch 1472 Information on filmportal.de