A Day in Nuremberg

Deborah


Mark and I spent the past weekend driving to Dinkelsbuhl and then to Nuremberg, both walled medieval cities. Whereas 90% of Nuremberg's Altstadt was destroyed during the War, Dinkelsbuhl's Altstadt was completely untouched. Walking its streets, you really do expect the people to look as old as the town and come hobbling out of their houses with bent backs. It took us a while to adjust to the sights of modern people going about their business in this very charming town. Here are some pictures. (Remember that you can recapture the original resolution of the photos by clicking on each one individually.) 

Weinmarkt, the main thoroughfare.

The facades have a gingerbread quality to them.;
they extend beyond the roof-line to give a fanciful
air to the buildings.

    This is the back of St. George's Cathedral.
Dinkelsbuhl was one of a handful of towns in Germany that were established as
Mixed Imperial Cities, having a joint Protestant-Catholic
government strictly divided between officials of each religion,
but I am unsure of the timing on this.
It perhaps occurred during the Reformation, but much more
research would be required for a definitive answer.

Yes, another rear view, but I loved the off-kilter angularity
of the church and the way the stone melts into the wall above it.

One of the tors of the city viewed from outside the town wall.
You can see Mark walking toward it.

This house is notable for its cantilevered
walls and its funky color.

We had been drawn to Dinkelsbuhl because of its reputation as an artists' colony, and of course, its architecture. Artists are known to set up their easels and their wares in various spots throughout town. However, this being March, not a single artist was to be seen. That was okay. Less money spent by us.


The highlight of our visit to Dinkelsbuhl was a jazz concert held in the basement of the yellow building you can see in the first picture up above. Arriving Friday night, we walked around the city, had some dinner, and noticed a sign announcing a free jazz concert that evening. Well, there wasn't anything else to do in this quiet town at the end of March. The band was from Berlin and called themselves Ground Green. The place was packed, but we eventually muscled our way over to some cozy, little seats. The very excellent music was led by a saxophone player who was outdone a couple of times by his phenomenal drummer whose solo had people spellbound. At the end of the evening, when we asked why no cover charge had been requested, we found that the audience were comprised mostly of members of a jazz club that brings a weekly lineup of musicians to their Jazzkellar (no, that's not a typo). Lucky for us. We did make a donation, however, since the music really was well worth it.


The next morning, we walked around town, captivated by the quaint structures and old world style of the town. After a warming lunch, it was off to Nuremberg since the next day was Sunday and the best thing to do on Sundays in Germany is go to museums. The shops are all closed, but the museums are open.


An hour later, we arrived in Nuremberg, quickly located an inexpensive hotel close to the northern wall of the city, and set off to explore the Altstadt. The plan for the next day was to visit Albrecht Durer's house and  the Germanisches National Museum.


Albrecht Durer was a very influential figure during his lifetime (1471 - 1528) and much sought after as an artist . His initial fame came from his woodcuts and engravings. He began his career training under his father as a goldsmith, but he had a great desire to be an artist. His father indulged him because he had applied himself to his studies from an early age and his artistic talent was apparently not to be ignored. Now, he is the first artist known to have painted a self portrait and also the first to render a landscape of a specific scene.

Albrecht Durer's neighborhood with
the Imperial Castle in the background.

The room where Durer met with the his clients and
where he and his friends discussed the topics of the day.

The hearth in the kitchen.

A replica of Durer's printing press.

Martin Waldseemuller's Great Map of the World, 1507 in
which the name "America" appears for the first time.
This is not the original, of course, but a replica. 

As we neared the top of the house, we came to an exhibit of work by young people who had used Durer's work as inspiration for their own. They were all excellent and some were stunningly original. The next two were my favorites.

by Anastasiya Tatarinova of  Ukraine, age 10
from Durer's "Triumphwagen Kaiser Maximilians" von 1521

A close-up

by Nona Spasova of Bulgaria, age 16
from Durer's "Bildnis einer Venezianerin" von 1505/07

My interest in Durer began the day I walked up to the second floor of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and was stopped short by his self portrait. He was 28 years old, with long curling locks of hair, a sensuous coat cloaking his form, and a captivating face whose penetrating eyes still speak directly from the canvas. The force of his personality stares out with such power, like a direct current, that I had to know more about the age in which he lived. Who is this man, I wanted to know? What age produced such a person?

There is, in fact, as I later learned, quite a bit of controversy about this portrait. Many people thought he was likening himself to Jesus Christ's image. The long hair, the direct gaze, the self assurance most likely contributed to this. The Durer I saw in this portrait gazed out with complete self confidence, a confidence in himself, yes, but also a confidence in his stature, his place in society, in the world.


Nuremberg inhabited a very special place in the world, as it turns out. The cusp of the 15th and 16th centuries, Durer's time, was a time of great revolution in the European society. A middle class, which sprang up within the town culture, became the agent of change in the transformation of Europe away from the traditional medieval structure of nobility, clergy, and peasantry. Industrial development was one of the revolutionizing forces in this transformation. The first mechanized industry to develop was printing. Durer's occupation as a print-maker made him part of this dynamic middle class that was changing the world.  


Economic development accelerated. The New World was discovered. Its discovery had been aided by the scientific instruments being produced in Nuremberg, which was a seat of scientific and technological innovation. The Germanisches National Museum, which we visited over the weekend, displays many of these fascinating pieces of instrumentation. There are astrolabs, astronomical devices, clocks, and compasses of all kinds, including some that hang vertically. Visiting this museum gave us quite a lot of insight into this time period and to Nuremberg's importance in the world at the time.

Klappsonnenuhr (Folding Sundial)
Hans Troschel, Nurmberg, 1582

A vertically hanging compass

A darling little compass

Oluhr
Lamp Clock, Eighteenth Century

One of the most important objects in the whole museum is the Behaim globe that was produced by Martin Behaim for the king of Portugal. Behaim was a merchant who lived in Nuremberg and constructed the globe just before the New World was discovered. It shows the ocean between Europe and Asia as containing small islands where one could find precious items or minerals such as pearls or gold. There is no American continent. The tour guide at the museum (who gave a wonderful tour in English) told us that this precious item had been requested for the 500-year celebration, held in Washington in 1992, of Columbus's discovery of the New World. The globe was too fragile to travel, however. Apparently, this globe is the primary destination for most international visitors to the museum.

There are four or five churches in the Altstadt. We went into the Lutheran church, St. Sebaldus, and into the foyer of the Catholic Cathedral. This was difficult for us as it was built on the ruins of a synagogue that was destroyed during the pogrom of 1349 to make way for the church. 


St. Sebaldus, now Lutheran, was almost totally destroyed during WWII. You can see a picture down below of how it looked after the bombing of the city. The congregation was divided as to whether to undertake the monumental task of rebuilding their church, but they did decide to rebuild. Inside the church is an exhibit, designed to mimic the stations of the cross, that are an emotional recreation of the destruction and ultimate rebuilding of the church. 


Please click on the poem, the second image you see below. You will see that the seventh line of the poem has been altered repeatedly. It is hard to make out the original word at the end of that line, but the word that has endured is "Nazis."

After our visit to Nuremberg, we went home and started reading, eager to further our understanding of the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, how this played out in Germany, and how it affected the development of the Protestant religion. Much of this part of history was not well understood by either Mark or myself. Visiting churches as we had traveled around, learning about relics for the first time, reading about the Holy Roman Empire, has led to lots of questions. What exactly was the Holy Roman Empire, how was it related to the church and to the Pope -- these are the questions leading us on.