Religious Art in Olomouc (Czech Republic)

The Diocese of Olomouc was first mentioned in 1063 and back then covered the area of whole Moravia. The monasteries in the diocese became centres of art, culture and education in the following centuries. In 1777 the diocese was elevated to an archdiocese. In Czechoslovakia the seat of the archbishop remained vacant, but in 1989 a new archbishop was consecrated.

The Archdiocesan Museum of Olomouc preserves and shows the works of art of the Olomouc Archdiocese. Its collection represent thousand years of Moravian culture and its picture collection is the second largest in the Czech Republic. It was also one of the first museums in the Czech Republic with a lecturing department. In 2015 the Olomouc Premyslid Castle and Archdiocesan Museum got the European Heritage Label.

Official European Heritage Label postcard

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and the Herzog August Library (Germany)

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic. He was one of the most important persons of the Enlightenment era in Germany and had an important impact on German literature. His most important works include Nathan the Wise, Emilia Galotti and Minna of Barnhelm. He died in 1781 in Braunschweig.

Lessing stamp from the
series Great Germans (issued 28-06-1961)

 In 1770 Lessing became librarian at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel.

The Herzog August Library was founded by Duke Julius of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1572. It houses a large collection of manuscripts of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period and is one of the oldest libraries in the World which have never suffered loss to its collection. Today it is a major international research centre for Medieval and Early Modern culture. Some of the documents from its collection are part of the Memory of the World Programme of the UNESCO.

The Lessinghaus was built next to the library in 1733 as residence for court officials. In 1777 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing moved to the house. There he lived until his death in 1781 and wrote his play Nathan the Wise. Today it is owned by the Herzog August Library and houses a museum about Lessing's life and work.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the last Polymath (Germany)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in 1646 in Leipzig. He is said to have been the last polymath and contributed to mathematics, physics, technology, philosophy, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics and computer science. 

His parents aroused his interest in juridical and philosophic problems very early and autodidactically he learned Greek and Latin in his father's library. In 1661 he matriculated at the Leipzig University. Aged twenty he wanted to take his doctoral degree in jurisprudence, but the professors refused as they thought he was too young, so he moved to the University of Altdorf. In 1672/73 he finished his calculating machine and became a foreign member of the Royal Society. In 1676 he moved to Hanover. In 1700 he promoted the foundation of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz died in 1716. 

The house in which Leibniz lived in Hanover was destroyed during
World War II, but it was later rebuilt.

Leibniz was a good friend of Sophia Charlotte of Hanover (upper left corner),
 the wife of King Frederick I of Prussia,
and often visited her at the Lietzenburg, modern day Charlottenburg Palace.

Between 1691 and 1716 Leibniz was the librarian of the famous
Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel.

Leibniz in buried in the Church of the New Town in Hanover.

The Music of Bach (Germany)

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer of the Baroque period and organ and piano virtuoso. He was born in 1685 in Eisenach. Later he lived in Ohrdruf, Lüneburg, Weimar, Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, again Weimar, Köthen and Leipzig. Some of his most famous compositions include The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Christmas Oratorio and The Art of Fugue. He died in 1750 in Leipzig. Today he is said to be one of the most important composers in music history, although he was not widely recognised as such until the revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century.

The music of Bach is said to be the apogee of Lutheran church music and the musical expression of the Reformation. The 28th July is his memorial day in the Lutheran Church.

Born in Eisenach in 1685, he was the offspring of a ramified musician family and the eighth child of his parents. His father was wait and aulic trumpeter. A cousin of his father was organist at the Saint George's Church, owing to whom the young Bach came in contact with church and organ music very early. Aged eight he went to the same latin school which Martin Luther had attended two hundred years ago. His mother died in 1694 and his father in 1695. Therefore Johann Sebastian Bach and one of his brothers were forced to move to Ohrdruf to live with their elder brother Johann Christoph Bach.

In 1700 Johann Sebastian Bach and his friend Georg Erdmann lost their bursaries in Ohrdruf and decided to go to Lüneburg to continue their school education. Both did not have to pay the schoolfee, but were obliged to sing in the choir of the Saint Michael's Church. Bach was the first member of his family to choose a higher education instead of an apprenticeship as musician. During his time in Lüneburg he also visited Hamburg sometimes. In spring 1702 he finished the school in Lüneburg. His further life until March 1703, when he started to work in Arnstadt, is not reconstructable.

In 1707 Johann Sebastian Bach moved to the Free Imperial City of Mühlhausen. There he became organist at the Divi Blasii Church and due to his good salary he was able to start a family. On the 17th October 1707 he married his first wife, Maria Barbara Bach. Together they had seven children. As ordered, he composed the cantata God is my King for the change of Mühlhausen's town council in February 1708. Already in July 1708 Bach and his family moved from Mühlhausen to Weimar, but he was connected to the city for many years afterwards.

In Köthen Johann Sebastian Bach lived from 1717 to 1723. There he was employed by Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen and worked as capellmeister. He also composed parts of The Well-Tempered Clavier there. In 1721 he married his second wife Anna Magdalena in Köthen, before he moved to Leipzig in 1723.

In 1723 Johann Sebastian Bach became the chanter of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. In Leipzig he composed the St Matthew Passion, the Christmas Oratorio and The Art of Fugue. On 28th July 1750 Johann Sebastian Bach also died in the city.

14.11.2016

A Mystery of the Biedermeier Period (Germany)

On the 26th May 1828 an apparently mentally retarded and sparsely speaking boy appeared in Nuremburg. He claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell just fed with water and bread. His stories caused sensation and soon he became known as mysterious foundling. Many theories arose about his origin. The most famous is probably that he was linked with the grand ducal House of Baden, but these have long since been rejected by historians.

The boy was committed to the care of the gymnasium teacher Georg Friedrich Daumer, who taught him in various subjects. On 27th October 1829 he was found with a cut in his forehead, which, as he said, was brought on him by a masked attacker. This incident aroused the interest in the boy once again. Another incident happened on the 3rd April 1830. In 1831 the boy moved to Ansbach, where he socialised with the best sections of the community. On the 14th December 1833 the boy suffered a life-threatening penetration wound and three days later died from the consequences. 

Until today it is still a mystery whether everything happened like the boy said or whether it were just lies. But anyway his name, Kaspar Hauser, became a synonym for Hospitalism and his story was often thematised in poems, songs, books and movies.

Kaspar Hauser Memorial in Ansbach