Round tower
The round tower of Andernach is a large defense tower from the 15th century and the guard tower of the city fortifications on the northwest corner of the medieval city wall. It is Andernach's landmark and one of the mightiest defensive towers of its time.
history
As a guard and defense tower of the city fortifications, the round tower was built in the years before 1440 (round part, first mention in the building accounts) and 1448 to 1453 (octagonal tower) as the round mandrel on behalf of the council of the city of Andernach - probably on the spot of the Roman north-western fort leak tower or a smaller previous building. The site manager for the second construction phase was the municipal foreman Philipp Preudemann (Philips Preudeman). It is not known whether Preudemann also worked as an architect. In the course of its history the tower was called ronder thurn in the 17th century and in the 18th and 19th century. Century round tower , then round tower . Master carpenter Johann was responsible for all woodwork, including the assembly and dismantling of the pedal crane , master Engel (Enggel) was the blacksmith on site. All ropes and ropes came from the workshop of Klaus von Mendig (Claise van Mendich) and Christian von Düsseldorf (Kirstgain van Duysseldorp). Other masters mentioned were Heinrich Schönbel (Henrich Schoinboil), Arnold von Lieser (Arnolden van Leser) and Johann Meyener . A name of the otherwise nameless journeymen, workers, servants and assistants has been handed down: "In the same week, Peter Attenderngin hopped on 3 days , y the day 6 schillings, makes 1 mark 6 schillings." ("In the same week (week 3. -8 September 1453) Peter Attendernchen traded for 3 days, every day for 6 shillings, makes 1 mark 6 shillings ”).
According to more recent findings, the cylindrical substructure is possibly well before 1440, i.e. H. already started from 1412 to 1415 (according to Manfred Huiskes). References to this can be found in the detailed master builder calculations that have been handed down to us from this period of lively construction activity on a new tower in a position not mentioned. 30 years after that, the eponymous round substructure could have stood without an attachment. A roof repair on the tower in 1442 after storm damage indicates a very advanced or finished tower and thus an earlier start of construction before 1440, as well as the differences in the design of the friezes and loopholes of the substructure compared to the top and the lack of stone carving marks there . The substructure only had rectangular shooting holes, while so-called keyhole notches were also used in the top. After some work in 1446, the tower with the octagonal tower was further built in 1448. For this purpose, a construction double step crane was brought onto the completed tower substructure and used until 1452. In the last year of construction in 1453, a Göpelwerk at the foot of the tower carried the last of the materials upwards. With the laying of the tuff slabs of the roof, the main work was completed (around November 15, 1453).
The mighty fortified tower was probably intended as an urban and bourgeois counterpart to the archbishop's castle in the south-east , a clear symbol of renewed civic consciousness, also with regard to the uprisings of the citizens against the elector from 1357 to 1367. This was underlined by the position in the west City wall 50 meters north of the former Kölnpforte, through which the respective elector was only allowed to enter the city according to protocol. Despite the tight financial situation, the funds were raised by the citizens, i. H. not only from the ruling class, but from a large number of citizens, deliberately without a contribution from the incumbent Archbishop of Cologne Dietrich II von Moers . Because of the political and financial pressure under which the archbishop was (including the pledging of the city, Soester feud 1444–1449), the time in this power vacuum was favorable.
The continuous duty alarm was given by its height of 56 meters, which allowed a wide view of the Rhine Valley, as well as a watchman (Tower Pfeifer) especially in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, the next guard and fire guard service and incoming ships for the Rhine customs "anblies" (reported). A preserved council minutes from August 24th 1515 shows how the new tower guard named Blasius was introduced into office. In addition to the right to live with his mother, two wagons of firewood and clothes from a city servant, he received nine gold florins a year. He always had to carry the tower key with him. Several hook boxes and field snakes were set up on the upper floors or on the battlements, and other defensive materials (oil, pitch, stones, powder) were stored in the rooms. During this time the chamber in the base (dungeon, “deustere kamer”) was a prison. The most famous inmate was the noble Gerlach Hausmann von Namedy 1509, the most powerful man in the city at the end of the 15th century, lay judge from 1477 to 1509 and several times mayor , who at that time was only elected for one year.
The task of the round tower as a defense tower became clear in the Truchsessischen or Cologne War 1583–1589 against the Elector Gebhard von Waldburg-Trauchburg , Truchsess von Waldburg , who had converted to Protestantism , whose troops tried in vain to penetrate the city, which was fighting on the Catholic side, through the Cologne gate.
On the night of April 30th to May 1st, 1689, the tower withstood an attempted demolition by the retreating French troops of Louis XIV and thus showed its stability. What remained is an eruption on the western side of the field of the tower about 1.20 m deep and the size of a small car. In the following time parts of the tower slowly fell into disrepair, and pieces of wall broke from the parapet of the battlements. Around the middle of the 19th century was greater in the wake wall stoppages, the Cologne-based portal as Kirch and sheep gate fell victim to the tower to be demolished, which could be prevented.
In 1880 major renovations were carried out and the old city coats of arms made of tuff were replaced with new ones, although they were used vertically instead of at an angle and unpainted. On 17 August 1922, the date in the dungeon of the town castle from 1911 to 1922 housed hostel set in the Round Tower. The teacher Georg Heinrich Aschenberg (1857–1940) was the first hostel father. Initially the hostel had 50, then 80 beds in four halls (1927: 10,036 overnight stays, 5th place among the Rhenish hostels; 1930 11,985). It lasted until 1935 when it moved to the Krahnenberg. The Hitler Youth moved into the tower. In 1949 the youth hostel in the tower was reopened with a high number of overnight stays (1950: 11,700) until 1961, when it was closed forever due to outdated accommodation conditions and non-existent expansion options. It was one of the most popular hostels in the region and was known beyond the borders of Germany.
On March 11, 1945 during the last days of the Second World War , the stone helmet was damaged by shelling, further damage could be averted. The damage was not repaired until 1952. Instead of the flagpole, a twenty hundredweight finial made of Mendiger basalt was put on as the helmet end , as it was possibly also used as a roof attachment in 1453, and the finials on the eight gables and four dormers were renewed.
In 2003 the large tower was extensively renovated as a place of remembrance of the city and its history for its 550th birthday (including the parapet and flooring of the battlements, fortified houses, outer masonry) and has since appeared in new splendor. On the occasion of the anniversary, a special exhibition entitled "550 Years of the Round Tower" was held in the City Museum from May 18 to December 7, 2003, and a glossy booklet was published.
In July 2010, Hall 1 (boys' hall, lowest floor in the octagonal tower) of the former youth hostel was converted into a youth hostel museum room.
description
The mighty defense and watch tower, 56 m high, is architecturally made up of two sections. The 33 m high and 14.8 m (completed in 1446) in diameter round base is externally unjointed and a projecting trefoil arches Fries with a stone walkway along with city side incorporating guard house (weighting shed, waichthuse 1453) with an oven, a fireplace and columbarium , Abort bays , machicolated completed. Inside, it is divided into three floors: cellar vault ( deustere kamer (dusty chamber) - dungeon and storage room) with domed vault and fear hole as the only access, base floor (with entrance from the battlements, as was common at the time via a retractable wooden ladder) and upper floor - both with six-part cap or groin vault ceilings . Furthermore, the tower 26 m high and 9.8 m (diagonally) wide is Achtort -Aufsatz (variant of the round churn tower ), 1445 came in planning and was completed 1448-1453. It has three floors (the lowest also with a six-part ridge vault , second with beamed ceiling, third with a flattened dome ceiling) and a gable floor (storage). On the outside, a floor belt separates the otherwise undivided facade between the two main floors. It concludes with eight tuff gable, four Dormer, each with finials, Cone stone helmet with large central finial (since 1952) and the four below the trefoil - arch frieze admitted, pointing in the four directions large coat of arms of tuff. They were originally painted in color and inserted in heraldic "leaning" (at an angle). Based on the invoices received, which show eight tuff slabs from Wehr , eight coats of arms or larger ones consisting of two slabs are discussed. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the tower was mostly depicted without a roof end (finial or tower ball / weather vane); in the depictions of the early 20th century and in the 1920s and 1930s, a flagpole completed the structure. Originally, it was possibly a weather vane or lead tip with or without tower ball or a finial , because a central finial is not shown separately in the construction invoices, but probably. The exact appearance of the tower (top of the roof, parapet roofing, color of the exterior) after completion of construction is not known. Two of the vaults (base storey and first of the octagon) can be divided by inlaid floors. On the city side, the stone spiral staircase is integrated into the wall thickness of the substructure and superstructure (here a cantilevered into the interior due to the lower wall thickness). Until round battlement today it from the bottom of 137 steps inside the tower 100. The oldest known representation of the tower from 1503 of a particular unknown artist on the right inside wing of the Cologne today Wallraf-Richartz Museum located triptych that Holy Family pointing, made for Nicasius Hackenay II, Cologne merchant and financier Maximilian I , originally set up in St. Achatius , shows the tower with a simple lead tip and covered battlement in the form of a pent roof . There are no more traces of this cover and its support (beams, wall mountings) today. It is possible that this roof was removed in the course of the 16th century, as the traces were removed during the major renovation in 1880 on all depictions of the century and later. Such, often easily removable covers can be found on other butter churn towers (such as the keep (witch tower) of Idstein Castle ) in the Taunus. As building material, quarry stone for the masonry (Devonian greywacke ) came from the nearby Geiersbergley (Krahnenberg quarry ), Nieder mendiger and Wehrer Tuff (coat of arms stones, cladding, spire roof and roof of the guard house, chimneys, etc.), and low-end basalt lava ( lintels , window frames , stairs , Gutters, gargoyles , consoles, finials, friezes). Furthermore, at the height of the tower entrance, a two-meter-thick cladding layer of seldom used tuff stone from the Laach lake area was built, which suggests that full tuff cladding was briefly advised, which would have given the tower an even more magnificent appearance (comparable to the Andernacher Liebfrauenkirche or the Maria Laacher Abbey Church).
At a height of 56 meters up to the finial and walls up to five meters thick, it is the highest defensive tower on the Rhine and one of the largest medieval defensive towers at all (the second highest keep in Germany). According to Werner Bornheim called Schilling , it is "the most important independent German city tower of the 15th century, which neither serves as a gate tower nor as a town hall tower". The tower walls used to be provided with a whitish to ocher-colored exterior, with color gradations to the superstructure as an architectural structure. Remnants of the plaster persisted into the 19th century.
Especially his crown-like, eight-fold triangular gable stone helmet finds no parallel in secular buildings, at least today. The idea for the roof shape comes from the design of the helmets of octagonal crossing towers or bell towers of large churches, especially in Rheinhessen ( Dittelsheim , Guntersblum , Worms ), that of the tower architecture from 13th century Italy, here square ( San Miniato al Tedesco, Friedrichsturm (Tower Frederick II - Torre Federico II ) or Florence , Arnulfturm - Torre Arnolfo des Palazzo Vecchio ).
A similar tower, with Achteckaufsatz but shingle, had Burg Reifenberg in the high- Taunus than keep before their destruction. Only the 33 m high substructure still exists.
Other towers of the name can be found in Copenhagen ( Rundetårn (Runde Taarn), 34.8 m / 43 m (with telescope) high, completed in 1642) with a 209 m long spiral inner path, the Leipzig Tower ( round tower , 44 m) in Halle (Saale) , Obernburg am Main , Zell an der Mosel , Sigmaringen , the keep of Burg Kirkel and Burg Bohlingen , the tower of the Catholic. Parish Church of St. Markus in Reinheim im Bliesgau .
The round tower in art
In the 19th century in particular , the round tower was a popular motif of the romantics . Engravings, watercolors and ink drawings were made by him. William Turner , Carl August Lebschée (detailed watercolor from 1835), William Tombleson (1840), Victor Hugo (1840) and others have depicted the tower, realistically and idealized, as the main motif or part of a cityscape, such as the view of the Andernach harbor with the old Krahnen and round tower by Johann Andreas Ziegler . It was called the Round Tower , Old Tower , Romantic Tower or even Roman Tower . William Turner created 51 watercolor studies based on the sketches he made on site in London in 1817, which show his special ability to assess lighting conditions. An early depiction comes from Matthäus Merian's view of the city (1646), the oldest known from the so-called “Master of the Holy Kinship” on the Cologne triptych from 1503.
A literary memorial was also placed on the tower. When Victor Hugo from 10-14 While staying in Andernach on September 1st, 1840, he made a preserved red-brown ink drawing from the tower in his hotel room in Schaarstrasse with Krahnenberg and Hammerstein in the background. The tower, which fascinated the romantic, he described in detail, could not enter it because of broken steps and vaults, as mentioned in the letter to daughter Léopoldine (Didine). As early as 1830, the novella One Day on the City Tower of Andernach in Moosblüthen appeared in Frankfurt am Main as a Christmas present from Friedrich Wilhelm Carové , who lived and worked in Andernach in 1816.
literature
- Peter Adams: Brief history of the city of Andernach . Andernach 1955
- Werner Bornheim called Schilling : City and city wall on the Middle Rhine . In: Die kleine Stadt: Design of small and medium-sized towns in the Rhineland . Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection, Neuss 1960
- Paul Clemen (ed.): The art monuments of the Rhine province - Mayen district . 1st half volume, Düsseldorf 1941, 171 f.
- Georg Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments (Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland) . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1972
- Franz-Josef Heyen (Ed.): 2000 years Andernach. History of a Rhenish city . City administration Andernach 1988 (published for the 2000 year celebration, no ISBN), 1994 (2nd extended edition)
- Victor Hugo: Le Rhin. Lettres à un ami. XIII. Paris 1842
- Manfred Huiskes: Andernach in the Middle Ages: From the beginning to the end of the 14th century . L. Rohrscheid, Bonn 1980; ISBN 3-7928-0441-7
- Hans Hunder: Andernach. Depictions of the history of the city . Andernach city administration 1986
- Hans-Jürgen Krüger: Inventory of the archive of the city of Andernach . Vol. 7 - Calculations, Koblenz 1986, pp. 387-408
- Barbara Lechler: The round tower . In: Gates and Towers . Stadtmuseum Andernach 1984, issue 2, pp. 21-23
- Klaus Schäfer (Ed.): 550 Years of the Round Tower. Booklet accompanying the special exhibition in the Andernach City Museum from May 18 to December 7, 2003 (= Andernacher contributions 18), Andernach 2003; ISBN 3-9807996-1-1
- Ottheinz Schindler, Manfred Huiskes: Andernach (city center) In: Rheinische Kunststätten . Booklet 8, 2nd edition, Cologne 1979, p. 21 f .; ISBN 3-88094-277-3
Web links
- Activities around the round tower by the Förderverein Runder Turm Andernach 2006 eV
- Brief description of the tower on the Naval Fellowship side
- historical representations with a round tower
- historical pictures with round tower
- Round tower in 1880 before renovation
- Alter Thurm zu Andernach am Rhein , Ludwig Lange 1850
- The round tower erroneously designated as a tower near Oberwesel (around 1840)
- Round tower on Andernach.net ( Memento from May 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werner Bornheim called Schilling: City and city wall on the Middle Rhine . In: Die kleine Stadt: Design of small and medium-sized towns in the Rhineland . Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Heritage Protection, Neuss 1960
Coordinates: 50 ° 26 '26.6 " N , 7 ° 23' 46.4" E