The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine Part 12

One link binds Carlsruhe with the traditions of ecclesiastical art in Germany, and that is a most acceptable statue of Ervin von Steinbach, the master-builder of Strasburg's cathedral. It flanks the princ.i.p.al portal of the Polytechnic School.

_Darmstadt_

Though more ancient than Carlsruhe, Darmstadt has a prosperous modern appearance, and consequently lacks those lovable qualities of a tumble-down mediaeval town which usually surround architectural treasures of the first rank.

The Stadthaus, or Hotel de Ville, dates from the fifteenth century, and the Palace from 1605 (in its reconstructed form); but there is nothing of sufficient interest about the churches to warrant the devotee of ecclesiastical architecture ever setting foot within their doors.

As delightful little cities, with tree-bordered promenades and a general air of prosperity and modernity, Carlsruhe and Darmstadt are well enough; but, as the setting for religious shrines, they are of no importance.

Behind the Stadthaus, in the old town, will be found the Protestant place of worship. It is in unconvincing Gothic, with nothing remarkable about its constructive elements, and little or nothing with respect to its details. One feature might perhaps arrest the attention. This is a retable of the conventional orthodox form which occupies the usual place--even in this Protestant church--at the end of the choir.

The Catholic church is situated on a great rectangular open place, known as the Wilhelminen Platz. It is a recent construction, and accordingly atrocious.

In form it is an enormous rotunda, one hundred and thirty-four feet in circ.u.mference, lighted by a shaft in the centre of its immense cupola.

The porch by which one enters this rather pagan-looking structure is simple, and by far the most gracious feature of the edifice. On the frieze one reads, in great golden letters, the single word "Deo." In the lunette which surmounts this porch is a sculptured figure of the Virgin between two adoring angels, and on a marble tablet is engraved:

LUDOVICO Ha.s.sIae ET AD RHENUM MAGNO DUCI PATRI PATRIAE

The interior, more even than that of the church at Carlsruhe, is a weak imitation of the Pantheon at Rome.

The great dome is upheld by twenty-eight enormous Corinthian columns, but the walls are bare and without ornament of any sort.

The only accessory with any pretence at artistic expression is the altar. It is either remarkably fine, or else it looks so in comparison with its bare surroundings.

_Wiesbaden_

A conventional account of Wiesbaden would read something as follows:

"Wiesbaden, the capital of the Duchy of Na.s.sau, is about an hour's drive by road from Mayence and three from Frankfort. It lies in a valley, encircled by low hills, behind which, on the north and northwest, rises the range of the Taunus Mountains, whose dark foliage forms an agreeable contrast to the brighter green of the meadows and the white buildings of the town. Within the last few years several new streets have been erected; the Wilhelmstra.s.se, fronting the promenades, would bear a comparison with some of the finest streets in Europe."

Such, in fact, is the description which usually opens the accounts one reads in the books of travel of a half or three-quarters of a century ago.

To-day Wiesbaden, as a "watering-place," doubtless retains all the virtues that it formerly possessed; but fashionable invalids have deserted Wiesbaden for Homburg.

All this is of course quite apart from the consideration of great churches; but great churches, for that matter, were quite apart from the considerations of most of the visitors to Wiesbaden.

The city possesses, however, a very satisfactory modern Catholic church, the work of the architect Hoffmann. It will not take rank with the mediaeval masterpieces of many other places, but it demonstrates, as has only seldom been demonstrated, that it is possible to make a very satisfactory church building of to-day by copying pleasing details of other times.

Were it not that it is built in the red sandstone of the country, this fine edifice would be even more effective.

It is not a thoroughly consistent style that one sees. There is Byzantine, Romanesque, and avowedly Gothic details superimposed one upon another; but this is often seen in the masterpieces of other times, and, so long as the varieties are not put into quarrelling relationship with each other, it is perhaps allowable.

There is a triangular pediment above the grand portal which is certainly most singular, and may have been a product of the author's fancy alone.

Nothing exactly similar is remembered elsewhere. In the main, however, the whole structure is reminiscent of much that, drawn from various sources, is the best of its kind.

The interior is divided into three naves by numerous great and small pillars of a polygonal form, the capitals only bearing any traces of modelling.

The high altar is decorated with some good sculptures, and there are a series of paintings, which might be modern, or might be ancient, so far as their unconvincing merits go.

Of the attraction of the waters and the pleasures of the society found at Wiesbaden during the season, nothing shall have place here, save to remark that the springs were famous even in the times of the Romans.

There is a "Greek chapel," built in 1855, at two kilometres from Wiesbaden. In the style of the sacred edifices of Moscow, this chapel was erected by the Emperor of Russia and by the Grand Duke Adolphe of Na.s.sau to serve as the mausoleum of the d.u.c.h.ess Elizabeth of Na.s.sau, a Russian princess.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GREEK CHAPEL, _WIESBADEN_]

This fine memorial was also the work of the architect Hoffmann, and, though bizarre and unbeautiful enough from certain points of view, it is a highly successful transplanting of an exotic.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XIII

HEIDELBERG AND MANNHEIM

_Heidelberg_

As the ancient capital of the Lower Palatinate, Heidelberg early came into great prominence, though many of the details of its early history are lost in obscurity. The Romans have left traces of their pa.s.sage, but the history of the early years of Christianity is but vaguely surmised.

Conrad of Hohenstaufen, brother of the red-bearded Frederick, came here, in 1148, as the first Count Palatine of the Rhine. The ruins of what is supposed to have been his once famous chateau are yet to be seen on the Geissberg.

In 1228 Heidelberg was declared the capital of the Palatinate under Otto of Wittelsbach, and became the residence of the Electors, who, for five hundred years, inhabited that other and more popularly famous chateau, which is known to all travellers on the Rhine as the "Castle of Heidelberg." In 1724, they chose Mannheim as their official residence.

Few cities of Europe have so frequently undergone such horrors of civilized warfare, if warfare ever _is_ civilized, as has Heidelberg, though mostly it is a.s.sociated in the popular mind of personally conducted tourists as a city of wine and beer drinking and general revelry and mirth.

The city has been five times bombarded, twice reduced to ashes, and three times taken by a.s.sault and pillaged.

To-day, it has recovered from all these disasters and takes its place as one of the most brilliant of the smaller commercial centres of the Rhine valley, though for that matter Heidelberg is situated some little distance from the river itself.

Of Heidelberg's population of perhaps twenty-five thousand souls, nearly one-third are Catholics, an exceedingly large proportion for a German town.

St. Peter's, the most ancient of Heidelberg's churches, contains many tombs of the Electors. In 1693 Melac and his soldiers, after having thrown to the winds, at Speyer, the ashes of the emperors, rummaged about here in the church of St. Peter, and tore the bones of the n.o.bles from their leaden caskets, throwing them broadcast in the streets. A Frenchman who remarked upon this sacrilege forgot that his own countrymen did the same at St. Denis's a hundred years later.

The princ.i.p.al church edifice of the city is St. Esprit's. Its architecture belongs to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though it cannot be described as belonging to any precise style. Its interior is divided into two parts, which, curiously enough, were devoted to two distinct sects, the choir being consecrated to the Catholics and the nave being occupied by the Protestants. Jerome of Prague, a disciple of John Huss, harangued his believers in this church in times contemporary with that of Huss himself.

In the midst of the market-place is a statue of the Virgin, and facing the north side of the church is a house dating from 1492, known to-day by the sign of the Chevalier zum Ritter. Among the numerous ornaments of this fine mediaeval dwelling-house is to be noted the following inscription:

"_Si Jehova non edificet domum, frustra laborant dificantes eam V.

S. CXXVII.--Soli Deo gloria et perstat invicta Venus._"

The University of Heidelberg, as presumably all readers of guide-books know, is the most ancient and the most celebrated in Germany. It was founded by Robert I. in 1386. Luther gave his dissertation here in 1515, hence, so far as its connection with religious matters goes, it is of great importance.

Its library was one of the most precious in Europe, but Tilly, who headed the Bavarians who entered Heidelberg in 1622, presented the greater part of it to Pope Leo XI. The valuable books and ma.n.u.scripts remained in the Vatican, where they formed the Palatine Library, until the taking of Rome by the French in 1795. The rarest of the works were sent to Paris, whence they were returned to Heidelberg in 1815.