Sternengasse (Cologne)

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Sternengasse - Cologne cityscape from 1570 by Arnold Mercator ("Die steirne gaß")

Sternengasse is the name of a historic street in Cologne's old town south . Personalities from world history lived here .

location

The only 206 meter long Sternengasse begins at the transition from the Hohe Pforte to the Hohe Straße and ends at the north-south route (the section here is called Neuköllner Straße). Its eastern extension is called Stephanstraße, its western extension beyond the north-south route is Leonhard-Tietz-Straße . The only access road is the Hohe Pforte coming from the south.

middle Ages

The Sternengasse, which was already paved in the Middle Ages, connected the street Unter Pfannenschläger (today part of the Hohe Straße) with the Church of St. Peter.

The namesake of the Sternengasse are two houses that had the word "Stern" in their name. In 1296 the Dominican brother Hermann Sterre (mhd. = Ram, stands for sheep breeding) acquired the corner house no. 1, which has been known since 1307 under the Latin name "ad stellam" (to the star). The house "zum golden Stern" in No. 3 dates back to the 14th century, where Heinrich von Offenberg lived from 1594. The Dominican Gerardus (Gerhard) Korngin, who has been living in the Sternengasse since 1290, hid himself under the name Gerhard von Sterngassen, referred to in the shrine books as "domus pistoris" (Backhaus). Korngin means “grains” in High German, because the large family went about the bakery trade. Johannes Korngin is attested as a lecturer in Strasbourg until 1316, and lecturer in Cologne since 1320.

Neither the founder nor the time of origin of the “Stollen” convent in the Sternengasse are known; it was probably built in 1317 by Johannes Stollen. In 1331, the patrician Gumpard Hardefust donated the Holzhem or Sterren convent, founded by Konrad von Holzheim, for 12 people. In 1412 the first brewery "zu den Bretzen" was built in No. 3, later it was called "Im St. Peter". A shrine book entry from March 2, 1436 confirmed the property of Reynart Broderman van Durpmunde (Dortmund) in the Sternengasse. Adolf Eichholz , Rector of Cologne University , was born before 1490 in the house "zom kleynen Boum" (to the little tree) in the Sternengasse.

House number 10

Sternengasse 10 - Rubenshaus, in the foreground left no.12 (1910)

In 1279 the house "zum neue Bussen" (to the new rifle) appears for the first time in No. 10, which was called "zum Raben" in 1422 and belonged to Cologne mayor Mathias Walrave . In 1453 it became the property of the mayor family Caspar Kannengießer. According to a register of citizens, it was owned by the Hildebrand Sudermann family of mayors in 1582 . His daughter Plec (k) trudis Sudermann brought it into her marriage to Mayor Johann Hardenrath through marriage . Johann Hardenrath died in the house on February 2, 1630. Johann's daughter Anna Christina Hardenrath inherited the house and on April 14, 1639 married the imperial field marshal Jost Maximilian Graf von Gronsfeld , who named the property "Gro (e) nsfelder Hof". Anna Christina Hardenrath inherited it in 1643 after the death of her husband. The house remained in the possession of the Gronsfeld family until November 1728, who sold it to the councilor Ludwig von Gall, who renovated the property in 1728. It was transferred from his widow Adelheid von Gall to Franz Joseph Imhof, who finally sold it to Adam Joseph Schlügen in 1790.

Count Gronsfeld's courtyard in No. 10 served as a refuge for famous people from contemporary history. At first, Jan Rubens' family (then owner: Hermann Sudermann), who had fled from Antwerp to Cologne in October 1568 for reasons of faith, lived in the house . But the marriage of Jan Rubens with his wife Maria got into difficult times, because Jan was arrested on March 9, 1571 for adultery with Anna of Saxony in Siegen and imprisoned in Dillenburg , from where he went to Siegen on May 10, 1573 Security deposit is released. Jan's son Peter Paul Rubens was born there on June 29, 1577 ; after May 15, 1578, the family moved back to Sternengasse. Peter Paul Rubens spent his childhood there. After the death of father Jan Rubens on March 1, 1587, he was buried at St. Peter , the mother and her children moved back to Antwerp in March 1589 .

When Maria von Medici was expelled from Paris by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635 , she traveled to exile in Cologne via Dover , Vlissingen and Dordrecht in October 1641 . Here she was initially assigned an apartment by the Cologne City Council in the house "zum Paradies" on Brückenstrasse. The "wedded Queen from France" moved into the city on October 12, 1641 towards evening through the Eigelsteintorburg . Just four days after her arrival, the extravagantly living Maria complained about her poor accommodation. On November 18, 1641, Gronsfeld gave her the best apartment at 10 Sternengasse. The manor house provided enough space for the queen and her entourage and servants. Maria's personal physician Jean Riolan came to Cologne in January 1642 and reported in May 1642 that Maria had already gotten mules for the trip to Paris. But in June 1642 she got a serious disease. She died in Cologne of a wound rose on July 3, 1642. According to a legend, her heart was buried in the Epiphany Chapel of Cologne Cathedral, her body on March 8, 1643 in the royal crypt of St. Denis. She left a picture of the Virgin Mary with relics painted on wood “as a grateful remembrance” to the City Council of Cologne, and other objects went to the Cologne Carmelites in her will .

In addition to the shared house in Cologne, there is another connection between Rubens and Medici. Between 1621 and 1625 Peter Paul Rubens painted the “Medici Cycle” comprising 24 paintings.

House number 25

Sternengasse 25 - Johann Peter Weyer , stair tower of the Jabacher Hof, from: Kölner Alterthümer , Volume XXVIII, 1853, drawings of architectural details in Cöln , plate 33, Cologne
Sternengasse 25a - Jabacher Hof, star room with two-bay star vault (1892)

The "Gunters House", which has been attested since 1330, was on property no. Everhard Jabach (1528–1579) acquired property no. 25 only posthumously on September 3, 1580 by entering it in the shrine books . The rear vineyard for this had already been assigned to him on June 25, 1571. The prerequisites for the major renovation of the Jabacher Hof were thus in place. This took place between 1592 and 1596, because on the coat of arms in the tower window was the number 1596, the cast iron firebacks contained the year 1592. The inauguration of one of the most important Cologne patrician houses took place in 1598, the courtyard had a 20 meter high stair tower with 84 stone above ground and 31 wooden steps. It had elaborate stucco work, bay windows, wood paneling and art glazing. The 8.40 × 6.20 meter large garden hall was given a magnificent star vault and became the “star room”.

Since 1554, the Jabach fur merchant family owned a large property at 25 Sternengasse, which was given a highly regarded new building in 1596/98. Everhard III. was born in Cologne in 1618 as the son Everhard II. Jabach. In 1638 he moved the headquarters of the family company to Paris, where he rose to become director of the East India Company, director of the Royal Manufactory and a banker worth millions. The bond with Cologne remained despite the distance. His wife Anna Maria (from the De Groote family in Cologne) traveled to Cologne before each birth of their children so that the offspring of the family could become a native of Cologne. Everhard III shared an interest in contemporary art, which his father had already demonstrated by commissioning Peter Paul Rubens. additionally with a passion for collecting. When the art collection of King Charles I of England was auctioned in London in 1650, 32-year-old Everhard Jabach was one of the main bidders. Over the years, Everhard succeeded in amalgamating one of the most important art collections of its time. When he was finally forced to sell them 20 years later for financial reasons, the collection of 101 paintings and 5,542 graphic sheets by the greatest masters became the basis for the art collection of the Louvre. The painting by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659–1743) shown here is one of many portraits that Everhard Jabach commissioned from the painters of his time (e.g. from Anthonius van Dyck, Peter Lely, Charles Lebrun and others). Rigaud will have painted it in Paris around 1688, at a time when he had already become the portraitist of the highest social circles.

On April 7, 1601, son Everhard II acquired the neighboring property (No. 25a). It was not until 1615 that the family also used the farm as a residence. All sons have lived in the property since then, Eberhard V lived permanently in the Jabacher Hof from 1680, which he left in 1696 to manage his father's estate in Paris. Charles Le Brun painted the family in 1660 on an artistically and historically significant picture with monumental dimensions of 2.33 meters × 3.25 meters. It was not until 1695 that the picture came to Cologne and adorned the Jabacher Hof.

After the death of Franz Anton Jabach (1695–1761), the ownership of the Jabacher Hof passed to Ferdinand de Groot, who in turn sold it to the Johann Matthias De Boers von Overen family who owned the farm on November 19, 1791 to Everhard Oswald Freiherr von Mering (1755–1820) rented it for 12 years. Around 1900 the Jabacher Hof was replaced by a new building, whereby only the listed garden hall remained, which fell victim to the Second World War in 1943. House No. 25 was in today's Leonhard-Tietz-Straße on the Kaufhof grounds.

Late Middle Ages

House number 12

House No. 12 was the house "Moenichshuysen", where the shoemaker's guild house moved in in 1411 and expanded in 1465 through the acquisition of the neighboring house; the guild house stayed here until 1797.

Between October 1641 and June 1642 there were also clashes, tumults and shootings in the Sternengasse, probably incited by Richelieu's provocateurs. The city also cordoned off the Sternengasse during the day and posted a soldier guard in front of Maria de Medici's house.

Changing street names

The star alley, which opens at the northern end of the Hohe Pforte, was called “sterringazen” in 1225 and “platea stellarum” in Latin documents in 1272. After 1296 it was called "Sterregas". The alley was first mentioned in a shrine note in 1388. Arnold Mercator recorded it in his Cologne cityscape from 1570 as "Die steirne gaß". During the French period , the Sternengasse was literally called “rue des Etoiles” from January 1813 in the “ Itinéraire de Cologne ”. In 1815 it was given its old name back.

Founding period

Sternengasse - house front (1890)

House No. 1

The Catholic Dutch family of Jakob Henot emigrated to Cologne before February 1571 because of the uprisings in the Netherlands , where they ran the hostel "zur Britzen" in the elegant star street No. 1. In 1578 Seraphin von Taxis appointed the Cologne merchant Jakob Henot as the first Cologne postmaster in Cologne. His daughter Katharina Henot was burned as a witch in the Melaten cemetery after intrigues . The office building at Sternengasse 1 is still owned by Post AG today, while the new building No. 10 on the site of the former Rubens House functions as telecommunications office 2 for Deutsche Telekom.

House number 3

In October 1856 the family of Franz Wilhelm Koenig moved into No. 3 with five children. At that time he was President of the Chamber of Commerce in Gladbach and commuted until 1860. According to an address book from 1846, the pensioner Agnes von Geyr still lived in the Geyrschen house of the Geyr von Schweppenburg family in No. 1. The neighboring house No. 3 was acquired by Piusbau-Actiengesellschaft in June 1877 in order to build a larger assembly and ballroom in connection with the front building by Heinrich Wiethase in the garden by 1880 . Here in No. 3 lived the Cologne manufacturer Franz Clouth , where he founded the Rheinische Gummiwarenfabrik on September 10, 1862 . After they moved to Cologne-Nippes ( Clouth Gummiwerke ) in 1868 , he rode daily on horseback from Sternengasse to his factory; the family lived here until 1879. The house was demolished in 1911.

House number 5

Gustav von Mevissen bought house no.5 in March 1842, which he donated to the city in 1890. The painter Wilhelm Leibl - son of the Cologne cathedral music director Carl Leibl - was born in No. 22 in October 1844 .

House No. 9-11

According to the address book, Jean Marie Farina maintained a perfumery in nos. 9-11 in 1855.

Rubens memorial plaque (1987)

House number 10

Hermann Päffgen founded his brewery in No. 10 on September 15, 1883 , which he relocated to Friesenstrasse 64-66 in 1884, where it still exists today.

Ferdinand Franz Wallraf had a memorial plaque put up at number 10 in 1822, stating that Peter Paul Rubens was born here. On the modern commemorative plaque attached to the successor building after the destruction of the Second World War in 1987, it now says that Rubens, born in 1577, lived “from 1578 to the age of eleven in Cologne”, including “six years [...] in the house at 10 Sternengasse”. Unfortunately, the panel dates the death of Maria de Medici in this house to 1643 instead of 1642.

House number 12

On March 26, 1778, at 5:00 p.m., the seven-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven performed one of his first public concerts as a pianist in the “Academie-Saal” of Haus Sternengasse No. 12 - the house of the Schumachergaffel (“Haus Thomberg”). His father made him almost two years younger in the announcement ("... and my sons of 6 years"). Around 1780 Johann Georg Leydel built house no.95, it was demolished in 1935.

House number 24

The Parisian rococo painter Johann Anton de Peters , who was born in Cologne, grew up in house No. 24 in 1725 ; his sister ran an art and music shop there.

House number 25

On July 24th and 25th, 1774, Goethe visited Cologne for the first time and admired the painting of the Eberhard Jabachs family by Le Brun in the Jabacher Hof. He stayed in the hotel "Zum heiligen Geist" (Thurnmarkt 16).

Modern times

Sternengasse 14–16 - the former telecommunications office 1 (February 2010)

In the spring of 1923, boxing manager Willy Fuchs inaugurated a boxing school in the Rubens Hall (no. 10) that was "open to amateurs and professionals for a fee" and had a trainer in Ludwig Neecke. On October 9, 1926, the Cologne Puppet Show was reopened in No. 10 . After moving to the current location (Eisenmarkt 2) on July 28, 1938, the "Rubens Wine House" was here, which was bombed on May 31, 1942.

From the Hohe Pforte the Herstatthaus protruded as a corner house into the Sternengasse, where it had another entrance in No. 1. After it was demolished in 1929, a new Herstatthaus was built in 1931 at Hohe Pforte No. 29 / Sternengasse No. 1 by Hermann von Berg . The quilt manufacturer Arthur Richter began manufacturing on his property in No. 83-85 in 1930 and expanded the company into the largest of its kind in the Cologne area. His former university professor Eugen Schmalenbach participated in the financing as a silent partner in 1944 and had a mortgage registered on the property . Richter sold the area in 1950 to Kaufhof Warenhaus AG (then No. 35), which had Hermann Wunderlich set up its central administration here until 1953/1954 and made structural changes in 1982.

When the archaeologist Otto Doppelfeld discovered a brick shaft in the cathedral in 1947, the legend of the Medici heart resting here was verified. The Chronicle of St. Denis, however, confirms that on April 28, 1643 the "heart of the deceased queen (...) was brought along with the body". During a state visit by Charles de Gaulle on September 5, 1962, he was shown where the heart was buried in the cathedral - that went too far ( French c'est trop ). It can be assumed that only her embalmed entrails rest here.

When the last section of the north-south route between Brüderstrasse and Sternengasse was completed on August 11, 1962 , this traffic axis cut through the Sternengasse; its western continuation was now called Leonard-Tietz-Straße. The Sternengasse remained true to its connection to the history of Cologne's postal service. The former Telecommunications Office 1 Cologne of Deutsche Telekom AG is located on the north side of the street in No. 14-16 up to the north-south drive on the site of the war-torn historical property and bordered by Cäcilienstraße and Hohe Straße . The complex includes a high-rise, elongated administrative buildings as well as residential units, office space and shops. The 18-storey high-rise (“et long Zillchen”) is 55 meters high and was inaugurated on June 14, 1965 by Mayor Theo Burauen . The radio stations Radio Köln , Deutschlandfunk , domradio and Kölncampus are still broadcast from the telecommunications tower via VHF . In August 2012, Detecon moved its headquarters from Bonn to numbers 14–16 and is increasing the number of telecommunications companies in the street.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Signon / Klaus Schmidt, all roads led through Cologne , 2006, p 323rd
  2. ^ Susanne Kaup, De beatitudinibus: Gerhard von Sterngassen , 2012, p. 72 f.
  3. ↑ Ludwig Röhrscheid, Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine , issues 113–116, 1928, p. 84
  4. ^ Anita Wiedenau, Romanesque housing in the Rhineland , 1979, p. 424.
  5. ↑ Ursula Rautenberg, Tradition and Printing: Holy Legends from Early Cologne Offices , 1996, p. 102.
  6. ^ A b Leonhard Ennen , History of the City of Cologne , Volume 5, 1880, p. 698.
  7. ↑ Father and son were mayors sixteen times from 1584 to 1630
  8. ↑ Leonard Ennen et al. a. (Ed.), Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine , issues 9-10, 1861, p. 71 f.
  9. ↑ Helmut Signon / Klaus Schmidt, all roads led through Cologne , 2006, p 324th
  10. ^ CA Menzel, The works of art from antiquity to the present , Volume 3, 1857, p. 156.
  11. ^ Nils Büttner, Mr PP Rubens: From the art of becoming famous , 2006, p. 19.
  12. ↑ Stefan Lewejohann, Cologne in Unholy Times: The City in the Thirty Years' War , 2014, p. 129.
  13. ↑ Ludwig Röhrscheid, Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine , Issues 9-10, 1861, p. 13.
  14. ↑ Fried. Everhard von Mering / Ludwig Reischert, On the history of the city of Cologne on the Rhine , Volume 3, 1839, p. 14.
  15. ^ Bavarian Academy of Sciences, New German Biography: Bd. Hufeland-Kaffsack , 1974, p. 208.
  16. ^ Hans Vogts, The profane monuments of the city of Cologne , 1930, p. 381.
  17. ^ Stefan Lewejohann, Cologne in unholy times: The City in the Thirty Years' War , 2014, p. 131.
  18. ↑ Hetty Kemmerich, Says what I should confess !: Witch trials: emergence, fates, chronicle , 2003, p. 181.
  19. ↑ Coloniales (17)
  20. ^ Stefan Lewejohann, Cologne in unholy times: The City in the Thirty Years' War , 2014, p. 136.
  21. ^ Adam Wrede, Neuer Kölnischer Sprachschatz , Volume III, 1958, p. 119 f.
  22. ↑ "Zum Rubens" brewery
  23. ↑ Stars of the Sternengasse
  24. ↑ Kölner Görrer-Haus, Cologne: Werden, Wesen, Wollen einer Deutschen Stadt , 1928, p. 144.
  25. ↑ Peter Fuchs (Ed.), Chronicle of the History of the City of Cologne , Volume 2, 1991, p. 96.
  26. ↑ Peter Fuchs (Ed.), Chronik zur Geschichte der Stadt Köln, Volume 2, 1991, p. 203.
  27. ↑ Erich Potthoff / Günter Sieben, Eugen Schmalenbach: the man, his work, the effect , 1984, p. 126.
  28. ↑ Georg Hauser, The Hearts of Mary of Medici , in: Kölner Domblatt , 2009, p. 127 ff .; Stefan Lewejohann, Cologne in Unholy Times: The City in the Thirty Years War , 2014, p. 137
  29. ↑ VHF / TV working group e. V., station table North Rhine-Westphalia (VHF)

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 3 ″  N , 6 ° 57 ′ 13 ″  E