Large barrel of the Heidelberg Castle

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The big barrel, 1896
The big barrel today

The large barrel in Heidelberg Castle is a tourist attraction in Heidelberg Castle visited by around 500,000 people every year . Today's barrel is the fourth such giant barrel in chronological order.

The four big barrels in Heidelberg Castle

  1. The Johann Casimir barrel 1591
  2. The Karl Ludwig barrel 1664
  3. The Karl-Philipp-Fass 1728
  4. The Karl-Theodor-Fass 1751

The first big barrel

The first large barrel in Heidelberg Castle (Johann Casimir barrel) was built under Johann Casimir by the cooper Michael Werner from Landau from 1589 to 1591 and had a capacity of around 127,000 liters. It was destroyed in the Thirty Years War and its wood was burned.

At the Spiegelsberge hunting lodge in Halberstadt , around three years after the completion of the first Heidelberg barrel, the same cooper, Michael Werner from Landau, kept an approximately 10% larger barrel called the Gröninger barrel . This barrel has been preserved there to this day and can be regarded as the younger brother of the world-famous Heidelberg barrel.

First large barrel in the castle

Anton Praetorius , pastor in Dittelsheim and later a fighter against witch trials and torture , made a trip to Heidelberg in 1594 as a stronghold of the Reformed faith. In addition to a precise description of the size of the barrel, in his poem Vas Heidelbergense , published in 1595, he praised the large barrel in Heidelberg Castle as visible evidence of the superiority of the Calvinist faith.

Title page barrel poem 1595

He dedicated the text to the reformed Elector Friedrich IV , during whose term of office the completion of the first large barrel fell. The world's only copy of the poem is in the Berlin State Library . Eight pages of the surviving copy were printed, the remaining seven pages are handwritten. The letters on the title page are artistically arranged in the form of a large wine barrel. Praetorius was the first to draw the world's attention to the giant barrel of the Neckarstadt with his work and to put it on its way to world fame.

Excerpt from the poem:

More amazed who did the whole work himself
Viewed personally; also he can
Apply to truly always and be a witness.
Many therefore come from afar
To good friends, to this barrel
To be able to see, just as I recently did myself.
And surely this work is worthy of God with God
Visited when a suitable opportunity arises.
Such a vessel with such a great gift of the vine, I believe,
It doesn't exist as far as the huge globe extends.
In vain does the customer on tap reach incredulous ears.
Because nobody can believe it if he has not seen it.
Here shines goodness, here majesty, here supreme power
Eternal God brighter everywhere.

(Translation from the Latin by Burghard Schmanck )

The second big barrel

Elector Karl Ludwig had a new barrel built in 1664 under the direction of the Heidelberg cellar master Johannes Meyer, which held 195,000 liters and was given a dance floor. It survived the destruction of the castle in the Palatinate War of Succession in 1689 and 1693. Due to ongoing decay, repairs were carried out in 1702 without any fundamental improvement in the condition of the barrel.

The third big barrel

Only in 1724 and 1727/28 was a complete renovation carried out under Elector Karl Philipp , which resulted in the third barrel. It held 202,000 liters and was around 4,700 liters larger. But the barrel was leaking again and again, so that as early as 1740 the Hofkammer planned a new building.

The fourth big barrel

The fourth barrel was completed in 1751 under Elector Karl Theodor and had a capacity of 221,726 liters. Today, after the wood has dried out, it still holds 219,000 liters. It was only filled three times because it was never tight. However, it was retained as an attraction for visitors to the palace. It was filled through a large hole in the ceiling. A hose was led through this hole into the barrel underneath and the wine was pumped into the barrel so that one did not have to climb on the barrel.

Perkeo - the barrel guard

Statue of Perkeo

The statue of the barrel guard Perkeo , symbol of the wine connoisseur, looks at the large barrel . According to legend, the elector Karl Philipp brought a dwarf from Tyrol , only about one meter tall, but weighing 100 kg , made him a court jester and asked him if he could drink the large barrel on his own. Like everything else, the latter is said to have answered in Italian: “Perché no?” (Why not?). This is how he came up with the name Perkeo.

The Heidelberg barrel in literature

The Heidelberg barrel is mentioned

literature

  • Andreas Cser / Stefan Wiltschko: The big barrel in Heidelberg Castle . Neckargemünd-Dilsberg, 1999, ISBN 3-931033-26-0
  • July Sjöberg (edit.): The large barrel in Heidelberg - an unknown chapter in the history of the Electorate of the Palatinate . Neckargemünd-Dilsberg, 2004, ISBN 3-931033-33-3
  • Hartmut Hegeler , Stefan Wiltschko: Anton Praetorius and the 1st large barrel from Heidelberg . 2nd ext. Edition 2007, Verlag Traugott Bautz ISBN 978-3-88309-405-2
  • Andreas Cser / Stefan Wiltschko: The four large barrels in Heidelberg Castle. On building, art, administrative and economic history. Neckargemünd-Dilsberg, 2007
  • Walter Laufenberg: The dwarf of Heidelberg - Perkeo, court jester at the palace of the Palatinate electors , novel paperback new edition by the regional culture publishing house , Ubstadt-Weiher 2008, paperback 224 pages, ISBN 978-3-89735-539-2

Web links

Commons : Großes Fass (Heidelberg)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Das Heidelberger Fass  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Coryat: Coryats crudities 1611. With an introduction by William M. Schutte. London 1978, p. 486 (drawing) .
  2. ↑ http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/hagedorn_sammlung02_1744?p=109
  3. ↑ Heine, Heinrich, Gedichte, Buch der Lieder, Lyrisches Intermezzo, 65. [The old, bad songs]. In: zeno.org. Retrieved December 30, 2014 .
  4. ↑ Heine, Heinrich, poems, gleanings, contemporary poems, this side and beyond the Rhine. In: zeno.org. Retrieved December 30, 2014 .
  5. ^ Karl Herloßsohn: Collected writings. Kober, 1868, p. 51. Restricted preview in the Google book search
  6. ↑ Busch, Wilhelm, Picture Stories, Die fromme Helene, Ninth Chapter. In: zeno.org. Retrieved December 30, 2014 .
  7. ^ Mark Twain in Heidelberg 1878. In: mark-twain-in-heidelberg.de. Retrieved December 30, 2014 .
  8. ^ The Specter Bridegroom - Washington Irving (1783-1859). In: about.com. February 1, 2010, accessed December 30, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Chapter 77: The Great Heidelburgh Tun
  10. ↑ Victor Hugo: The wretched. Hasselberg, 1863, p. 124. limited preview in Google book search
  11. ↑ Jules Verne : Five weeks in a balloon - Chapter 11 in the Gutenberg-DE project