Rantzau Obelisk

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The Rantzau Obelisk in Bad Segeberg

The Rantzau Obelisk is a memorial in Bad Segeberg in Schleswig-Holstein .

The construction

The building was built in 1590 by the royal Danish governor in Segeberg, Heinrich Rantzau , in the immediate vicinity of the so-called Rantzau pyramid and thus once stood on the road to Itzehoe on an undeveloped field in front of the city of Segeberg. It is one of the earliest examples of the renewed interest in ancient architecture in Germany. According to Rantzau's information, the shape of the Segeberg obelisk is based on the ancient obelisk erected by Pope Sixtus V in front of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in 1587 , which was once brought to Rome by Emperor Augustus . The obelisk was dedicated to the Holy Trinity and dedicated to the memory of the Danish King Frederick II, who had died shortly before , and with whom Rantzau had been on friendly terms; at the same time it served to commemorate its builder. In contrast, the monument is mostly only associated with its builder Heinrich Rantzau today.

The Segeberger Obelisk on a depiction by Peter Lindenberg

The figure

In its execution, the Segeberg Obelisk followed the so-called Temple of Nordoe , a similarly designed monument that Heinrich Rantzau had built in 1578 near the Breitenburg Castle . The Mannerist Segeberg building rises on a heaped-up hill and consists of a stepped substructure made of worked field stones, on which a granite base supports the actual obelisk made of polished Bückeburg sandstone. This has been badly weathered over the centuries, so that the multiple, carved panegyric inscriptions are hardly recognizable. On the other hand, the inscription "DEO ET FRIDERICO II / RE GIDANIAE ETSUIS / HIN ENRIC RAZOW DD / AC1590 AETATIS 64" (God and Frederick II / King of Denmark and his / Heinrich Rantzau donated it / recognized it in the current year 1590 at the age of 64). On the obelisk sat a crown with a glockenspiel made of gilded ore, the sound of which should proclaim the glory of Frederick II. With its original height of 16.5 meters, the Segeberg Obelisk even towered over its Roman model behind the Santa Maria Maggiore by almost 2 meters.

The post-story

According to the city chronicler Christian Kuß, the upper half of the obelisk with the carillon broke off during a hurricane on April 24, 1784. It is more likely, however, that the entire obelisk overturned during the said hurricane and that the stump was then reassembled in its current form from the fragments that were preserved. This would also explain why today's fragment only has one instead of two profile cuboids (as in the contemporary engravings) above the base area and the transition from the granite base to the sandstone stele appears somewhat "abruptly inorganic". After the remainder of the obelisk was rebuilt, a pair of storks brooded on the stump and was part of the cityscape even decades later. While the complex was neglected for a long time and a shallow brick boundary gradually fell into disrepair, the area around the obelisk was given a tall brick wall with a wrought iron gate in the 1880s. From a first evergreen enclosure, a surrounding planting with trees developed into the first half of the 20th century. The surrounding masonry made of coarse field stones was replaced with polygonal masonry around 1950. In 1983 the smoothed surface of the broken tip was given a flat cover to protect it from weathering. After controversies, the Segeberg city council agreed in 2015 on the renovation of the obelisk and the surrounding area, to which the German Foundation for Monument Protection and the State Office for Monument Preservation, among others, contributed funds and which took place in 2015 and 2016.

Literature and Sources

  • Dehio: Handbook of the German Art Monuments Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1994, ISBN 978-3-422-03033-6 .
  • Wiebke Steinmetz: "Pyramids and obelisks as signs of the pride of rule and noble self-expression", in: Heinrich Rantzau (1526–1598) governor in Schleswig and Holstein. A humanist describes his country, Husum 1999, pp. 69-75, ISBN 3-931292-57-6 .
  • Stephanie Silligmann: On the restoration of the Rantzau obelisk in Bad Segeberg, in: DenkMal! Schleswig-Holstein, Journal for Monument Preservation in Schleswig-Holstein (Vol. 24), Heide 2017, pp. 119–124.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Rantzau: Commentarius bellicus, libris sex distinctus, praecepta, consilia et strategemata pugnae terrestris ac navalis ex variis eruditorum collecta scriptis complectens, Frankfurt (Zacharias Palthenius) 1595.
  2. ↑ Transcription and translation after: Stephanie Silligmann: On the restoration of the Rantzau obelisk in Bad Segeberg, in: DenkMal! Schleswig-Holstein, Journal for Monument Preservation in Schleswig-Holstein (Vol. 24) Heide 2017, pp. 119–124, here p. 120.
  3. ↑ Peter Lindenberg: hypotyposis arcium, Hamburg 1591, page 95, writes: "altitudine autem hic Roman quantum excedat ex dimensione incisa godfather". How much the obelisk at Segeberg exceeded the Roman obelisk in height can be seen from the dimensions carved into the Segeberg obelisk. Lindeberg does not give an absolute height specification, but it can be inferred from this sentence that the Segeberg obelisk must have been over 15 meters high (with only a few centimeters difference to the 14.7 meter high model obelisk in Rome, it would not have been so proud can). The height of the obelisk is now given by Nathan Chytraeus: Variorum in Europa itinerum deliciae, 3rd ed., Herborn 1606 (previously Herborn 1594 and 1599), p. 518, with: "altus pedes 52 ½" (= 52, 5 Feet up). The most likely Danish foot (in Holstein in the 16th century) measured 31.38536 centimeters. This results in a height of around 16.5 meters.
  4. ↑ Christian Kuß: The city of Segeberg in the prehistory, Kiel 1847, p. 61.
  5. ^ “Segeberg's 'Cinderella' is being renovated”, in: Lübecker Nachrichten, Segeberg regional section, July 18, 2015, p. 13.
  6. ↑ As note 2.

Coordinates: 53 ° 56 '12.7 "  N , 10 ° 18' 0.8"  E