Nassau house

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nassauer House, 2010

The Nassauer Haus or Schlüsselfeldersche Stiftungshaus in Nuremberg is a medieval residential tower made of so-called red castle sandstone . Although originally built in Romanesque style, the house is still characterized by Gothic style elements after some renovations. It is the last residential tower still in existence in Nuremberg.

The tower is in the old town of Lorenz , opposite the Lorenz Church , at Karolinenstrasse 2.

history

The name "Nassauer Haus" has only been in use since the 19th century for the corner house and is based on an erroneous reference to the German King Adolf von Nassau († 1298). Until then, the building (since the early 18th century) was known as the Schlüsselfelderisches Stiftungshaus . In the 15th century, however, descendants of the king from the counts of Nassau owned property further north of the Lorenz Church.

The construction method for well-fortified tower houses or residential towers came in the 13th century from northern Italian cities to the German imperial cities trading with them . " Gender towers " were widespread in the (rather weakly fortified) trading centers to protect goods from raids, and also as status symbols of aristocratic families who had moved to the cities. In Regensburg several towers are still preserved in the Italian style. Around 1430, around 65 are said to have existed in Nuremberg, of which the Nassau house is the only one that has survived.

The cellar (with an irregular cross rib vault) and the two lower floors are dated to the 13th century. Around the 16th century, the vaults of the cellar and the ground floor were raised. The hall-like cellar is now used as an inn. The two upper floors, which are clearly distinguished by regular ashlar masonry with a reddish tint, from the small-scale structured walls of the lower floors, belong to the 15th century. The original tower is likely to have risen free-standing above the low wooden houses in the area and could also have carried a wooden or half-timbered tower in the manner of the Amorbach Templar house . At least the penultimate floor can be attributed to a renovation around 1422 by the then owner Jobst Haug. Ulrich Ortlieb, who is also responsible for the small choir, restored the top floor with its coat of arms frieze and the three pointed corner towers around 1433. A pyramid-shaped hipped roof is placed on the tower.

The residential tower probably only became a " defense tower " for romantic viewers of the 19th century, who may have seen a uniform structure in it, whereby the decorative crenellated wreath, the coat of arms frieze and the royal attribution may have contributed to this assessment. The most important external change is the installation of the arched openings on the ground floor in 1836; one of them was enlarged into a door around 1900. In the early days, the stone floors of the tower were likely to have only slit windows or loopholes and a high entrance .

owner

Corner turret of the Nassau house

Nothing is known about the original owners of the building during the time when the burgraves ruled the city. From the 14th century, the tower always belonged to families of the Nuremberg patriciate . In 1363 Hertel Volkmar (the progenitor of the Volckamer family ), who moved from Neumarkt to Nuremberg around 1337 , is said to have acquired the tower; and Peter Stromer (1310-1388) to have lived in and around 1422 then Jobst Haug; In 1426 the brothers Erasmus and Heinrich Schürstab owned it . From 1427 to 1450 it was then owned by the Ortlieb patrician family . In 1431 they lent King Sigismund 1,500 guilders , for which he gave them his crown as a pledge. On this occasion, the Ortlieb family had the stone balustrade of their residential tower decorated with the coat of arms of the emperor, the pope, the seven electors and the imperial city of Nuremberg.

Then the residential tower came from 1450–1581 to the Haller von Hallerstein , around 1556 Willibald Imhoff is said to have lived in the house. In 1581 the Schlüsselfelder von Kirchensittenbach acquired the tower and made it their Nuremberg headquarters. Her coat of arms is on a late baroque sandstone tablet under the Gothic choir. After they died in 1709, the building went to the still existing possession of the testamentary specified key fields's family foundation over, in the form of a pre-Chic Kung , a special and traditional legal form of the Nuremberg inheritance and foundation law. This is administered alternately by the Kreß and Volckamer families . The foundation owns other properties behind the Lorenz Church and Kugelhammer Castle .

Coat of arms frieze

Núremberg, Nassauer Haus.jpg

According to the latest state of knowledge, the following coats of arms are attached to the house (starting from the southwest bay window): Archduchy of Austria , the great city coat of arms of Nuremberg , County Cilli , Kurtrier , Kurköln , Kurmainz , Roman King , Pope Eugene IV , Holy See , City of Rome , Roman Emperor , Kurböhmen , Palatinate , Elector of Saxony , the Electorate of Brandenburg , St. Lawrence , the small city arms of Nuremberg , the coat of arms of Ortlieb . With its coat of arms decoration, the Nassau house has the earliest example of the two city coats of arms, as well as the juxtaposition of the king and (double-headed) imperial eagle.

Effects of war

The tower was badly hit by American bombing raids in 1945 , the roof and the top floor with two of the three turrets were largely destroyed (the left turret is the original), the upper floors burned out. It was rebuilt between 1950 and 1954. The building was restored by Rudo Göschel on behalf of the Schlüsselfelderschen Family Foundation, which is still the owner today. The coat of arms frieze was also largely renewed, fragments of the original parts are still in the tower.

On the second floor there is now a ballroom with a Rococo stucco ceiling, which originally comes from the Ebracher Hof in Adlerstraße, which was demolished in 1901. It then came first in the old library of the Germanic National Museum, which was later also demolished due to road construction work. In 1976 the ceiling came to the Nassau house.

Historical illustrations

See also

literature

  • Helge Weingärtner: Nassauerhaus . In: Michael Diefenbacher , Rudolf Endres (Hrsg.): Stadtlexikon Nürnberg . 2nd, improved edition. W. Tümmels Verlag, Nuremberg 2000, ISBN 3-921590-69-8 ( online ).
  • Günter P. Fehring, Anton Ress (greeting), Wilhelm Schwemmer (editing): The city of Nuremberg . (= Bavarian art monuments). 2nd Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-422-00550-1 , pp. 227–228
  • Christoph von Imhoff (Hrsg.): Famous Nuremberg from nine centuries . 2., erg. U. exp. Edition. Hofmann, Nürnberg 1989, ISBN 3-87191-088-0 (new edition: Edelmann Buchhandlung, 2000)

Web links

Commons : Nassauer Haus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Nürnberginfos.de
  2. ^ Nordbayern.de , September 3, 2005
  3. Gender towers on historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de, accessed on August 27, 2020
  4. ^ Jahn, C. Historical Mile Nuremberg . Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, undated
  5. Gallery: Photos of beautiful old coats of arms No. 1470 with description (by Bernhard Peter, Gernot Ramsauer and Alex Hoffmann)
  6. ^ Mediathek of the House of Bavarian History
  7. ^ Nordbayern.de , September 3, 2005

Coordinates: 49 ° 27 ′ 4 "  N , 11 ° 4 ′ 39.8"  E