Matthäus Ensinger

Memorial stone with master's portrait and coat of arms (Ulm Minster)

Bern Minster

Matthäus Ensinger (* 1390 in Ulm ; † 1463 ibid) was a builder of the southern German Gothic and son of Ulrich von Ensingen . Matthäus Ensinger belonged to the Swabian master builder family Ensinger .

plant

Ensinger was involved in the construction of the north tower of the Strasbourg cathedral under the direction of his father . After his death he went to Bern around 1420, where he was the construction manager of the Bern Minster until 1453 . His brother Mathias was his foreman . In 1421 he laid the foundation stone for the Bern Minster. In 1430, Matthew and his youngest brother Mathias received the inheritance of their brother Kaspar. From 1430, Matthäus and Vincenz, his son from his first marriage to an unknown woman from Bern, continued the construction of the tower of the Esslingen Frauenkirche and in 1435 he was a member of the Grand Council of Bern. From 1450 to 1451 he was foreman at the Strasbourg Cathedral and at the end of that year he was employed in Ulm. From him a 3.05 meter high and 0.65 meter wide five-leaf crack of the Ulm Minster Tower with his stonemason's mark is known. In Ulm he built large parts of the main tower and the side towers. The Valentine's Chapel, donated in 1458 on the southern Münsterplatz next to the Ulm Minster, is also attributed to Matthäus Ensinger . Matthäus stayed in Ulm until his death in 1463. In 1433/34 he made wooden shrine figures of the salvation mirror altar by Konrad Witz for the church of St. Leonhard in Basel , which have not survived.

Sons

He had two sons, Vincenz Ensinger and Moritz Ensinger . Vincenz was foreman at the Strasbourg, Constance and Bern Minster. Moritz was his immediate successor as master builder for the cathedral in Ulm, who closed the Lichtgaden and the vault of the central nave around 1470 and died in 1482. Matthäus Böblinger had already replaced him years earlier .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Franz-Josef Sladeczek: Ensinger, Matthäus. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

literature

• Eduard Mauch:  Ensinger . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 152 f.
• Roswitha Beyer:  Matthäus Ensinger. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 538 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Ludger Alscher et al .: Lexicon of Art. Architecture, fine arts, applied arts, industrial design, art theory . Volume I, The European Book, West Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-88436-107-4 (978-3-88436-107-8), p. 198.
• Franz-Josef Sladeczek: Ensinger, Matthäus. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Johann Josef Böker and Jean-Sébastien Sauvé: The Berner Riss of Matthäus Ensinger for the Strasbourg cathedral facade . In: Insitu - Journal for Architectural History , Volume V (2013), pp. 5–16.

Web links

• Ensinger, Matthäus. In: Sikart