Johann von Melem

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Coat of arms of the Melem family

Johann von Melem (born July 12, 1433 in Cologne , † March 20, 1484 in Frankfurt am Main ) was the progenitor of the von Melem family. The family was one of the most respected and wealthiest patrician houses in Frankfurt. It died out in 1654.

The ancestors of Johann von Melems came from Mehlem . He himself was born in Cologne and came to Frankfurt am Main in 1454. He married the Frankfurt bourgeois daughter Gredgen von Dorfelder and acquired Frankfurt citizenship in 1456.

By trading in cloth and precious stones he had become very wealthy in a short time. In 1464 he acquired the Bornfleck and Zum Rauchfaß houses on the market between the cathedral and Römerberg and had them torn down. In their place he had the stone house built, a magnificent building in the style of the Lower Rhine Gothic . The stone house has been owned by the city of Frankfurt since 1898. It was destroyed in World War II and rebuilt in 1962. Today the seat of the Frankfurter Kunstverein is located here .

Johann von Melem died on March 20, 1484 in Frankfurt am Main. He is one of the few contemporaries whose exact life dates are known. Melemstrasse in the north end of Frankfurt is named after the Melem family . A picture of his son, Johann von Melem the Younger, is in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich . His older daughter Katharina was married to the patrician and founder Jakob Heller .

Melems grandson was in the ganerbschaft Old Limpurg added, the most powerful patrician Association Frankfurt. One of his descendants, Johann VI. von Melem, wrote Melem's house book around 1550 , one of the most colorful and splendid gender books of the Renaissance .

literature

  • Franz Lerner, article about the patrician family Melem in the NDB , volume 17, p. 14
  • Johann Jakob Merlo :  Melem, Johann von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 293.
  • Rolf Walther: The Melem family's house book. A costume book of the Frankfurt patriciate from the 16th century. Publishing house of scientific books, Frankfurt am Main 1968

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johann Jakob Merlo:  Melem, Johann von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 293.
personal data
SURNAME Melem, Johann von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Frankfurt patrician and merchant
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1433
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1484
Place of death Frankfurt am Main