Henripolis
Henripolis was a city foundation project around 1625, which should have been implemented in the area of today's municipality of Marin-Epagnier in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland .
Political environment
The city founding project on the north bank of Lake Neuchâtel was the result of a power poker by the young Duke of Longueville , Henri II of Orléans-Longueville (1595–1663), who was both count and from 1648 Prince of Neuchâtel-Valangin. The Catholic prince disliked the behavior of the Protestant citizens of Neuchâtel . These were linked to some places of the Old Confederation by numerous castle rights treaties since the 15th century . Since the Reformation , the agreements with the Protestant city of Bern , in particular , had been expanded, which in the meantime noticeably restricted the prince's power.
He therefore decided to put a new princely trading town in front of the neighbors' noses, which due to its strategic location should drive a wedge between Neuchâtel and Bern and, as a new international trade center, should also generate income in the princely treasury. A safe center of trade was certainly of European interest, as numerous states had been at war with one another since 1618 (later called the Thirty Years War ). As a result, international trade was massively disrupted and trade routes were partially interrupted or at least become unsafe. Since Neuchâtel behaved neutrally, the location offered a guarantee for a prosperous future in the eyes of the prince.
The city foundation project
On June 24, 1625, Henri II signed the founding charter of the new city, which he named after himself Henripolis . This charter guaranteed the new citizens numerous privileges in trade, industry and civil rights. This also included the free exercise of religion and exemption from military service, both points that sounded downright utopian in a warlike environment.
Henripolis was to be built near the village of Marin on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel. This place was less than ten kilometers from the city of Neuchâtel directly on the navigable connection from the Rhine over the Aare , the Bielersee and the Zihl ( expanded to the Zihlkanal in the 20th century ) further over the Neuenburgersee, through the still to be built Canal d ' Entreroches and the Venoge across Lake Geneva down the Rhone . Since the lake level of Lake Neuchâtel was lowered by the Jura water corrections of the 19th and 20th centuries, today's lake shore is a few hundred meters away from the then planned site of Henripolis.
The town planning was exemplary and followed a city ideal of the 17th century. The chosen polygonal, semicircular city plan should reflect the functional hierarchy of its residents. The main axis led from the port (the commercial center) directly to the princely castle (the manorial center). The town hall (the bourgeois center) was located halfway between the port and the castle. The main transverse axis, crossing there at right angles, ended at both ends at a church (the ecclesiastical centers). All other streets should also intersect the two main axes at right angles, so that an approximately checkerboard pattern emerged. Fountains were planned at almost all intersections as an expression of hygiene and aesthetics. The entire city plan comprised 1650 parcels on an area of 54 hectares . Fully expanded, it would have offered space for more than 13,000 residents. So much for the ideal plan for Henripolis.
In 1625 and 1626, the princely government published multi-page German, French and Dutch advertising brochures to attract potential new residents. The favorable location of the new city within Europe, the city layout itself, the lovely surroundings and of course the privileges and freedoms granted were duly highlighted. The advertising text was illustrated with three maps : a map of Western Europe with drawn trade routes, a bird's eye view of Lake Neuchâtel and a city map.
The project was particularly well received in the reformed Netherlands . Not only individual merchants, but even the United East India Company were interested. They wanted to avoid the dangerous shipping route around Catholic Spain, so that a trading post in Protestant and neutral Neuchâtel was welcome. The local merchants Kaspar Scherer from St. Gallen and Bonifazius Iselin from Basel acted as representatives of the Dutch. Their main task was to raise the 50,000 thalers needed to finance the building land and to take over the management of the city after it was founded. Thus everything seemed to be regulated and the prince saw himself close to the goal of being able to realize an international trading center and thus an important source of income on his territory.
Reasons for the failure of the project
However, Henri II had made the calculation without the Neuchâtel citizens and the powerful city of Bern. Bern, neither as the protective power of the Neuchâtel nor in its own commercial interest, thought of allowing such a city to be founded and did its best to thwart the project. Bern's stance as the most powerful place in the Old Confederation had a signal effect and could not be ignored. In Neuchâtel, the princely governor Jean Hory, who supported his sovereign's project, made himself very unpopular with the citizens. As a result, there were neither enough local sellers of building land, nor enough people from Germany and abroad willing to settle. And with that, there was also no money to build the city. The project finally fell asleep without a house ever being built by Henripolis.
Historical evaluation
In retrospect, Henripolis was a singular, forward-looking social utopia . Religious, trade and commercial freedoms would have been realized, which only became common around 200 years later. Even more utopian was the founding of the city around the Thirty Years' War, one of the bloodiest religious wars that Europe had seen. From an economic point of view, it is also questionable whether the trade route between Lake Neuchâtel and Lake Geneva would ever have been made navigable and profitable. Henripolis joins a long list of ideal cities that have never got beyond the planning stage.
literature
- Castellani Zahir, Elisabeth; Voogt, Johan WF; Ingen-Housz, Johannes ML; Feldmann, Hans-Uli: Henripolis: Maps for a city foundation project of the 17th century: Documentation for facsimile . Murten: Cartographica Helvetica, 1993. ( Cartographica Helvetica, special issue [4]). [This also includes a copy of the German advertising brochure: Description and design of the Orths and the opportunity to use the new instead of Henripolis, so you can build next to Neüwenburg in Schweytzerlandt . Augspurg: by Johann Schultes, 1626].
- Castellani Zahir, Elisabeth; Voogt, Johan WF; Ingen-Housz, Johannes ML: Henripolis: Maps for a city foundation project of the 17th century. In: Cartographica Helvetica Heft 8 (1993) pp. 3–8 full text
Web links
- Olivier Girardbille: Henripolis. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Coordinates: 47 ° 0 ′ 30 " N , 7 ° 0 ′ 50" E ; CH1903: 567,701 / 206453