Mathematical Tower (Wroclaw)

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Mathematical tower of the main building of the University of Wroclaw
Allegory of theology

The Mathematical Tower is a landmark of the city of Wroclaw . Of the three planned towers of the main Baroque building of the University of Wroclaw , it is the only one that was realized. It was used as an observatory from the end of the 18th to the end of the 19th century .

Building history

In 1702, Emperor Leopold I founded the Jesuit College Leopoldina in Breslau . In 1728, under the direction of master builder Johann Blasius Peintner (1673–1732) and probably according to plans by Christoph Tausch, construction began on a new main building with the representative Aula Leopoldina , one of the largest baroque halls in Europe. The building was to be equipped with three towers, a central clock tower , the astronomical tower with observatory on the east wing (pharmacy wing) and the mathematical tower on the west wing (college wing). However, the construction was never completed, the east wing was not built and of the three towers only the mathematical one, which today dominates the building optically, was built. Directly below is the main entrance, which has a three-part portico with an openwork balustrade and the figures of the four cardinal virtues - a work by Johann Albrecht Siegwitz . Inside, the imperial staircase leads to the mathematical tower, which has a large terrace at a height of 42 m below the top floor with sculptures by Franz Joseph Mangoldt from 1733 at the four corners . They symbolize the faculties of a medieval university : theology , law , medicine and liberal arts ( philosophy ). It was only an ideal, as the college at that time only consisted of two faculties - the theological and the philosophical - and an expansion in the 18th century did not succeed either. Each of the female figures is three meters high and has the typical attributes of their faculty. Theology carries a cross and the Bible . Her face is partially covered by a veil as a symbol of the impenetrability of the mysteries of faith . Jurisprudence holds a book under the papal tiara in one hand and scales in the other . The allegory of philosophy in its connection to the seven liberal arts is endowed with the attributes of astronomy , the astrolabe , and geometry , the circle . The medicine can be recognized by its staff of Aesculapia .

In 1790 Longinus Anton Jungnitz (1764-1831) set up an observatory in the Mathematical Tower, which was used for over 100 years. A gnomon was installed on the upper floor of the tower . A 15.40 m long line runs through the floor of the room in a north-south direction on the meridian with the geographical longitude 17 ° 2 ′ 0.4936 ″. At the moment of astronomical noon , the sunlight falls precisely on this line through a 3.5 mm hole in the dome of the room.

During the Second World War , the lantern and the roof of the tower were destroyed. The entire building burned down, but was rebuilt in the years after 1945. In 1992 the Mathematical Tower became part of the newly founded University Museum. Most of the astronomical instruments transferred to the Jagiellonian University in Krakow in 1956 came back to Wroclaw after the reconstruction of the tower in 2000 and are now on display in the Longchamps Hall on the ground floor of the building. The tower was renovated from November 2013 to January 2014 because the building structure was at risk from seeping rainwater. Since then, it can be climbed up to the former observation terrace and today's observation terrace.

History of the observatory

The observatory was initially poorly equipped with astronomical instruments and consisted of Newtonian telescopes , concave mirrors , a micrometer for measuring star distances, a quadrant , an air pump and some electrical devices. Only in the first half of the 19th century, after the Leopoldina was merged with the Frankfurt Viadrina , was it possible to acquire modern equipment, e.g. For example, a 68-mm-Dollond- transit instrument and a 72-mm Fraunhofer - Heliometer . After Jungnitz's death in 1831, the mathematician Ernst Scholz became director of the observatory, but its actual director was Palm Heinrich Ludwig von Boguslawski , who held the position of curator from 1831 and was appointed professor in 1836. In 1835 he discovered a comet and determined its orbit. From 1840 until his death in 1851 Boguslawski was director of the observatory. His successor was Johann Gottfried Galle , who discovered the planet Neptune in Berlin in 1846 after the French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier had calculated the position of the celestial body from Uranus' orbital disturbances . Galle rebuilt the tower and procured new instruments. His work was increasingly disrupted by the unfavorable location of the observatory on the edge of downtown Wroclaw. Therefore, under the new director Julius Franz, from 1897 the observations were relocated to the Matthias Island in the Oder . At the end of the 1920s, director Alexander Wilkens had a new observation pavilion built in Scheitinger Park .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Homepage of the University Museum Wroclaw, accessed on July 1, 2017 (Polish).
  2. ↑ Peter Müller: Observatories in Pictures: Architecture and History of Observatories from the Beginnings to 1950 . Springer, 2013, ISBN 3-540-52771-0 , pp. 67 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ a b c Olga Mikołajczyk: Z wizytą na Wieży Matematycznej . Wrocławski portal matematyczny, August 4, 2013, accessed July 1, 2017 (Polish).
  4. ↑ a b Ewa Grochowska: Figury na Wieży Matematycznej mają już 280 lat ( memento from August 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the University of Wroclaw, November 5, 2013 (Polish).
  5. ↑ a b Wieża Matematyczna . "Spacerem po Wrocławiu" website, October 2, 2014, accessed on July 1, 2017 (Polish).
  6. ^ Hans-Joachim Girlich : Johann Radon in Breslau. On the institutionalization of mathematics (PDF; 111 kB). University of Leipzig, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Leipzig 2005.
  7. ↑ a b Małgorzata Porada: The Mathematical Tower . In: Academic Kaleidoscope , November / December 2004, p. 15 f. ( Online , PDF; 1.5 MB)
  8. ^ Małgorzata Mikołajczyk: Wrocławska meridianaj . Wrocławski portal matematyczny, August 4, 2013, accessed July 1, 2017 (Polish).
  9. ↑ Dziś otwarcie wieży matematycznej on the official website of the city of Wroclaw, January 23, 2014, accessed on July 1, 2017 (Polish).
  10. ↑ Brief history of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Wroclaw on their website, accessed on July 1, 2017 (Polish)

Coordinates: 51 ° 6 ′ 49.7 ″  N , 17 ° 2 ′ 0.5 ″  E