Tallinn Council Pharmacy
Coordinates: 59 ° 26 ′ 13.5 ″ N , 24 ° 44 ′ 45.7 ″ E
The Tallinn Council Pharmacy ( Estonian Tallinna Raeapteek ) is located on the Town Hall Square of the Estonian capital Tallinn . It is considered to be one of the oldest pharmacies in Europe that is still in operation today.
history
The Ratsapotheke is located in the building Rathausplatz 11 ( Raekoja plats 11 ), directly opposite the Tallinn Town Hall . It's actually three buildings that have been connected to each other. The council pharmacy was probably founded in the early 15th century. The first document attests to the third owner for the year 1422. Later sources refer to Johann Molner as the first pharmacist and mention that medicines were said to have been sold there as early as the middle of the 15th century.
Burchart pharmacist dynasty
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The history of the Ratsapotheke is particularly connected to the Burchart family (Burchard, Burchardt), a Regensburg pharmacist dynasty, who ran it from 1582 to 1911. The Hungarian Johann Burchart (von) Belavary de Sykava came from Bratislava to Tallinn between 1579 and 1581 . In 1582/83 he leased the “large pharmacy on the market” from the city council.
The first-born son of the Burchart family was given the name Johann and inherited the pharmacy. Johann Burchart (IV.) Bought it from the city in 1688 for 600 Thaler. In 1690 the Swedish King Charles XI confirmed. the purchase and the rights and obligations of the owner family. Members of the family also worked as doctors. The coat of arms of the Burchart family carved in stone with the year 1635 can be seen in the vestibule of the house.
In the attic, Johann Burchart (VIII.) Set up a small museum of local history in addition to wooden boxes to store herbs, which he called Mon faible (French: “my weak side”). Some of the exhibits from that time can now be viewed in the Tallinn City Museum.
At that time, not only medicines, but also other specialties were sold in the pharmacy: sweets, marzipan , pastries, paper, wax, spices, playing cards and later even tobacco. The Burchart family secured the privilege of importing 400 liters of cognac from France tax-free every year . The Ratsapotheke was also known for the Tallinn claret , a wine made by infusing spices and sweetened with sugar.
After Johann Burchart's death in 1911, his sister sold the Ratsapotheke to the Baltic German Rudolf Carl Georg Lehbert (1858–1928), thus ending the 325-year family tradition.
Council pharmacy today
After the Soviet occupation of Estonia, the pharmacy was nationalized in 1944. After Estonian independence was regained in 1991, the historic building was extensively renovated and inaugurated in 2003 with a new look. Today the pharmacy is on the ground floor. With its displays from the 17th to the 20th century, it is a magnet for many tourists. Above it is the Balthasar garlic restaurant . On the second floor there is a stone column with the coat of arms of the Burchart family and the year 1663.
literature
- Erich Seuberlich : Liv- and Estonia's oldest pharmacies. Contributions to their history collected and edited by Erich Seuberlich. Riga 1912
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Conny Becker, Kerstin A. Gräfe: Between myths and modernity. In: Pharmazeutische Zeitung , issue 21, 2005.
- ^ Gundolf Keil : Review by Elena Roussanova: German influences on the development of pharmacy in the Russian Empire. A handbook (= Relationes, series of publications from the project “Scientific relations in the 19th century between Germany and Russia in the fields of chemistry, pharmacy and medicine” at the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. Volume 19). Shaker, Aachen 2016, ISBN 978-3-8440-4419-5 . In: Medical historical messages. Volume 35, 2016 (2018), pp. 295–299, here: p. 297.
- ^ Thea Karin: Estonia. Cultural and scenic diversity in a historical borderland between east and west. Cologne 1994 (= DuMont art and landscape guide ) ISBN 3-7701-2614-9 , p. 66f.