Matthäus Roritzer

Roritzer, portrait of Hans Holbein the Elder Ä.

Matthäus Roritzer , also Roriczer (* around 1430/40 probably in Regensburg; † around 1492/95), was a German builder , printer and early representative of architectural theory in Germany. He was the eldest son of Konrad Roritzer , the Regensburg cathedral builder .

Life

The stonemason trade had a long tradition in the family of Matthäus Roritzer. His grandfather Wenzel and his father Konrad had already been master builders in Regensburg . He probably received his first training in a family context in Regensburg; In 1462 he followed his father to Nuremberg, where he was accepted as a citizen in 1463; then he stayed for an unknown period of time with the master builder Hans Böblinger and at the court of Eichstätter Prince-Bishop Wilhelm von Reichenau before he was granted citizenship of Regensburg in 1476. Here he replaced his father as master builder and remained so until his death around 1495.

Matthäus Roritzer was married and it is documented that his daughter Martha married the stonemason Hans Prem from Regensburg in 1498.

A silver pencil drawing by Hans Holbein the Elder is from around 1485/90 . Ä. preserved, which is identified by an inscription as a portrait of Matthäus Roritzer.

plant

In Nuremberg, from 1462 to 1466, Matthäus Roritzer and his father Konrad were responsible for building the hall choir of the parish church of St. Lorenz . Here he made the vaulting of the upper sacristy in 1464. Numerous indications suggest that he then planned and prepared the elaborate vault of the inner choir, the structural execution of which, however, fell to his successor Jacob Grimm. He then worked under Hans Böblinger at the Frauenkirche in Esslingen .

1472/73 Roritzer entered the service of the bishop of Eichstätt, Wilhelm von Reichenau , and the cathedral chapter there. Here he worked on the Cathedral Chapter sacristy and discussed questions of architectural theory with the humanistically educated bishop.

In 1476 Roritzer returned to his home town of Regensburg, where he succeeded his (still living) father as master builder . Under his direction the west gable of Regensburg Cathedral with the acorn tower and the third floor of the north tower were built. For the interior of the cathedral, Matthew made the pulpit (1482) and the sacrament house. His importance as a practical as well as theoretically active foreman has only been appropriately recognized in the recently published literature.

Attempts were made to link Matthäus Roritzer with the construction of fortifications such as the New Palace in Ingolstadt or the expansion of the ducal residence palace in Burghausen . However, such activities are neither proven nor likely for him.

Author and printer

Matthäus Roritzer was the author of the booklet Der Fiale Gerechtigkeit (1486), which he printed himself. This work was one of the most important works master books or architectural treatises in the period of the late Gothic and early Renaissance . Roritzer uses text and diagrams to demonstrate a possibility of the geometric development of the ground plan and elevation of a pinnacle . Another treatise by him was the so-called Geometria Deutsch (1487/88) and a text on the construction of an eyelash . He also printed several sheets of paper.

Presumably, these writings were addressed less to the craftsmen, who learned these methods in their practical apprenticeship training even without books, but to an educated public influenced by humanism , which was increasingly interested in architectural topics and here intellectual parallels to the mathematical and geometric foundation the architecture of the ancient theorist Vitruvius .

literature

Works

• Matthäus Roriczer: Booklet of the pinnacle justice / The Geometria German . Facsimile of the original Regensburg edition 1486–1488. Edited by Ferdinand Geldner with an afterword and transcription. Guido Pressler Verlag , Hürtgenwald 1999, ISBN 3-87646-086-7 .

Secondary literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

• Jakob Franck :  Roriczer, Matthäus . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, p. 15.
• Markus T. Huber: The west facade of the Regensburg Cathedral. Convention and innovation in a late medieval ironworks . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7954-2820-4 , pp. 44–46, 310–336, 344–346.
• Markus T. Huber: The Regensburg cathedral builder Matthäus Roriczer - a professional life between a stonemason and a study room. In: INSITU - Journal for the History of Architecture, 10th year, 1/2018, pp. 51–64.
• Markus T. Huber: Roritzer. In: General Artist Lexicon - International Artist Database - Online.
• Renate Klinnert: Matthäus Roritzer. In: Hubertus Günther (ed.): German architectural theory between Gothic and Renaissance. Darmstadt 1988, pp. 31-36.
• Peter Morsbach: The builders of the cathedral. The story of the Regensburg cathedral master family Roriczer-Engel . Regensburg 2009, pp. 99-122.
• Peter Morsbach:  Roriczer. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 35 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Lothar Schmidt: About the difficult birth of the German architecture treatise. Die Wiegendrucke Mathes Roriczers and Hanns Schmuttermayers, in: Scholion 3 (2004), pp. 168–174. Full text at academia.edu
• Wolfgang Strohmayer: The textbook of Matthäus Roriczer . Hürtgenwald 2004, ISBN 3-87646-104-9 .
• Wolfgang Strohmayer: Matthäus Roriczer. Architecture textbook . Hürtgenwald 2009, ISBN 978-3-87646-113-7 .
• Wolfgang Strohmayer: Late Gothic - the art of design. Tetenhusen 2011, ISBN 978-3-9501365-5-5 .
• Wolfgang Strohmayer: Geometric Logic by Matthäus Roriczer . Tetenhusen 2013, ISBN 978-3-9501365-7-9 .
• Wolfgang Strohmayer: Basics of an art teaching . Part I: On the "Art of Geometry" by Matthäus Roriczer. Tetenhusen 2015, ISBN 978-3-9501365-9-3 .

Web links

Wikisource: Matthäus Roritzer  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Matthäus Roritzer in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Morsbach 2009, pp. 105–111.