Cantonal Allegory
Cantonal allegories are allegorical female figures that symbolize Swiss cantons .
In the second half of the 17th century, allegorical female figures with the respective coat of arms and other attributes (e.g. wall crown , lance) appeared in the urban cantons and places facing the Confederation . In this way, the respective places expressed their claim to a sovereign status after the federal places had been granted “freedom and exemption ” by the Holy Roman Empire in the Peace of Westphalia (1648) .
Well-known examples of cantonal allegories are the Berna (for Bern ), the Basilea (for Basel ), the Geneva (for Geneva ), the Tigurina Virgo (for Zurich ) and the Lucerna (for Lucerne ). They thus represented state and city allegories in one. In general, canton allegories are mainly found in Reformed city centers, while the Catholic places, especially the rural cantons, preferred other forms of figurative representation, namely by saints.
In the 19th century, new cantonal alliances emerged in cantons that had previously formed subject areas, such as Argovia in the canton of Aargau or the Thurgovia in the canton of Thurgau .
After the establishment of the Swiss federal state (1848), the cantonal allegories lost their importance because they now lost their position as “sovereign virgins” to the national allegory Helvetia , which, as the embodiment of the Swiss Confederation, first appeared in the second half of the 17th century.
Canton allegories are most often found on medals . In the late 19th century, canton allegories also appeared regularly in pageants and historical festivals .
literature
- Ueli Friedländer: Swiss medals from an old private collection. With an introduction to the history of medals by Dietrich WHSchwarz. Zurich 1989.
- Dario Gamboni, Georg Germann (ed.): Signs of freedom. The image of the republic in the art of the 16th to 18th centuries. 21st art exhibition of the Council of Europe 1991, Bernisches Historisches Museum and Kunstmuseum Bern, June 1 to September 15, 1991. Stämpfli, Bern 1991, ISBN 3-7272-9185-0 .
- Stefan Hess , Tomas Lochman (eds.): Basilea. An example of urban representation in female form. Schwabe, Basel 2001, ISBN 3-7965-1737-4 .
- Stefan Hess, Tomas Lochman: Basilea. The rise and fall of a city personification. In: Basler Stadtbuch 2001 , pp. 262–266.
- Stefan Hess: The “Basel Council Table” by Johann Christian Frisch. Statecraft and carving around 1675 (= Basel treasures. 28). Baumann, Basel 2007, ISBN 978-3-9523034-5-0 .
- Stefan Hess: The sovereign city republic and its feminine face. On the genesis of Basel's urban personification. In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde. Vol. 115 (2015), pp. 99-153.
- Thomas Maissen : The Birth of the Republic. Understanding of the state and representation in the early modern Confederation (= historical semantics. Vol. 4). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-36706-6 (also: Zürich, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 2001).
- Jean L. Martin: Medailles suisses. = Medals of Switzerland. = Medaglie svizzere. Volume 1-4. Martin, Lausanne 1979–1995.