Lübeck city view by Elias Diebel
The Lübeck cityscape by Elias Diebel is a panorama picture of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck from the 16th century .
The woodcut
The monumental woodcut, 340 centimeters long and 73 centimeters high, is the work of the Lübeck artist Elias Diebel and was created in 1552. It is composed of two layers of 12 woodcuts each and shows Lübeck seen from the east, with the imaginary observer's location beyond the Wakenitz on the Falkenwiese called Warder is opposite the Hüxtertor with the medieval water arts in front of it. The engraving is marked with a label: LVBECA VRBS IMPERIALIS LIBERA CIVITATVM WANDALICARVM ET TOTIVS ANZAE SAXONICAE CAPVT.
In addition to the five outstanding churches with their seven towers - cathedral , Aegidienkirche , Petrikirche , Marienkirche and Jakobikirche - numerous other buildings are depicted and some have name plates, including the town hall as well as the mill gate and castle gate .
Diebel's depiction is rich in detail and claims to be realistic. The elevation of the city hill with the town hall and Marienkirche on top is one of the few verifiable artistic freedoms and serves to better reproduce the streets. The most important buildings are also shown exaggerated to make them stand out. Some of the streets on the west side of the old town island are "folded up" so that they can be shown on the sheet. The Lübeck museum director Wulf Schadendorf aptly described in 1979 that "a bird's eye view and vedute are in conflict with one another: the bird's eye view is sought, but the location and character of the city shape dictate the vedute."
The monumental woodcut was only printed in small numbers in two editions in 1552 and 1574. Only two copies have survived to this day: A colored one from the first edition from 1552, which is in the possession of the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg; and a copy of the second edition from 1574 in the British Library in London ( call number Maps R.17.c.10. ). The latter is identical to the long lost believed copy that John Geffcken from the 1843 reduction of the Hamburg senator Johann Georg Mönckeberg acquired and 1855 as facsimile - lithography had issued. The lithograph consisted of seven sheets, which together give an image area of 73.6 × 341.3 cm.
After Geffcken's death, the British Library acquired the woodcut in 1870. The facsimile was reprinted in 1881. Another edition appeared in 1906, edited and provided with an explanatory text by Friedrich Bruns , as a gift to the conference of the Hanseatic History Association and the Association for Low German Language Research.
The art historian Gustav Lindtke pointed out that the view of the city of Cologne created by Anton Woensam in 1531 could have been a model for the work.
The city praise
For the woodcut, Petrus Vincentius , the rector of the Katharineum, created a city praise of 215 elegiac distiches in Latin as an accompanying text , which he gave as an inaugural lecture on November 8, 1552 in the school's auditorium, the former chapter house of the Katharinenkloster . Presumably the view of the city was also exhibited. The city praise has been reprinted many times, first by David Chytraeus in Rostock . Zacharias Orth later used it as a template for a similar city praise on Stralsund , and Nikolaus von Reusner praised it as exemplary.
Today's benefit
Due to its closeness to reality and the wealth of detail, the Diebel Panorama is still of great importance to Lübeck historians and archaeologists , for whom the large-format city view serves as the basis for the reconstruction of buildings that have long since disappeared or have been significantly changed over the centuries. A good example is the church of St. Johann auf dem Sande , which was demolished in the 17th century and which has only survived as a detail from Diebel's woodcut. In addition, the woodcut offers a unique overall impression of the appearance of a town in the 16th century. The city view is even used for archaeological excavations. In terms of its current practical application, Diebels' woodcut is just as important for Lübeck's architectural history as the role of Vicke Schorler for the Hanseatic city of Rostock .
expenditure
- Lübeck in the middle of the sixteenth century. Seven sheets of paper and a sheet of text. TO Weigel, Leipzig 1855. (510 × 830 mm)
- Lübeck in the middle of the sixteenth century: Comments by Johannes Geffcken on the woodcut view of Lübeck. 2nd Edition. Glasses , Lübeck [1881].
- Lübeck in the sixteenth century: replica of J. Geffcken ed. large woodcut by Lübeck. With Erl. Text by Friedrich Bruns. Lübcke & Nöhring, Lübeck 1906
literature
- Friedrich Bachmann: The old city pictures: a directory of the graphic views of places from Schedel to Merian. Hiersemann, Leipzig 1939 (2nd, unchanged edition. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1965, p. 318 (No. 577))
- Gustav Lindtke: Lübeck - Views from ancient times . Peters-Verlag, Lübeck 1959.
- Gustav Lindtke: Old Lübeck city views. Catalog. (= Lübeck museum books, booklet 7). Lübeck 1968.
- Rainer Andresen: Lübeck - history, churches, fortifications . Verlag Neue Rundschau, Lübeck 1988.
- Peter Sahlmann: The editions of the large view of Lübeck by Elias Diebel (1552). In: ZVLGA . 70: 223-228 (1990).
- Peter Sahlmann: The old imperial and Hanseatic city of Lübeck: vedute from four centuries. (= Publications on the history of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. Series B, Volume 23). Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 1993, ISBN 3-7950-0461-6 , pp. 44-47 and Leporello.
- Hartmut Freytag: Lübeck in city praise and city portrait of the early modern times. About the poem by Petrus Vincentius and Elias Diebel woodcut from 1552. In: ZVLGA. 75 (1995), pp. 137-174.
Individual evidence
- ↑ On January 27, 1979 in the St. Annen Museum on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition Lübeck in the Picture of the Centuries (typescript).
- ↑ Identification in Sahlmann (1990)
- ↑ As in Bachmann (lit.)
- ↑ See this report on excavations on Wallstrasse 2006.
- ↑ Lübeck in the sixteenth century: replica of J. Geffcken ed. large woodcut by Lübeck. With Erl. Text by Friedrich Bruns. Lübcke & Nöhring, Lübeck 1906 (text only)
