Author: Maarten Koning

Castellio, Basel and Tolerance

As a centre of book printing, where Erasmus worked, and through its role as a mediator in religious policy, Basel became a place of refuge for religious dissidents and representatives of the Reformation in the mid-16th century.

They engaged in a (multilingual) discussion among themselves and with Basel citizens. When the Spaniard Michael Servet (1511-1553) was burned for heresy in Calvin’s Geneva in 1553, Basel became the centre of the protests.

The Savoyard humanist Sebastian Castellio (1515-1563) raised his voice with his courageous writings, which combined mystical piety with Enlightenment argumentation. Throughout the following centuries, his voice was heard across Europe for religious freedom, human rights, and tolerance.

The Reformation 1545-1620. Photo: Universitätsbibliothek Basel

The correspondence network of Castellio. Universitätsbibliothek Basel

The exhibition (Laboratorien der Toleranz. Sebastian Castellio und sein Erbe) presents Castellio’s life and works based on documents in the University Library of Basel. It encompasses historical upheavals and conflicts, networks and media, discourse, and the realm of thought, marking his work as a pivotal moment in the history of European tolerance thinking.

(Source and further Information: Universitätsbibliothek Basel)

Markus Böhmer, the commemoration of Sebastian Castellio. St. Albankirche, Basel.

Memorial Geneva

The Ancient Via Romana is a Road without Borders.

The approximately 400-kilometre road follows the course of the old Via Romana, which connected the Roman legionnaire’s camp Vindonissa (Windisch, canton Aargau, Switzerland) with the settlement Grinario (Köngen, near Stuttgart, Germany).

This road is also shown on the Tabula Peutingeriana, an ancient Roman road map. The original map is lost, but a medieval copy shows the road.

The road — which consists of three parts: Neckar-Alb, Neckar-Aare and Neckar-Hochrhein —  leads to museums, ruins, and other Roman (and Celtic) remains in the following towns and places

Neckar-Alb route:

Köngen, Nürtingen-Oberensingen, Pliezhausen, Kirchentellinsfurt, Rottenburg am Neckar, Bad Niedernau, Obernau, Eutingen im Gäu, Hirrlingen/Rangendingen, Hechingen-Stein, Burladingen, Geislingen-Häsenbühl, Rosenfeld, Sulz am Neckar, Oberndorf am Neckar, Rottweil and Niedereschach-Fischbach.

Neckar-Aare route:

Schleitheim, Hüfingen, Bad Zurzach, Brugg and Windisch.

Neckar-Hochrhein route:

Wurmlingen, Engen, Tengen, Stein am Rhein, Eschenz, Pfyn and Frauenfeld.

(Source and further information: www.roemerstrasse.net).

Allerheiligen Monastery Schaffhausen

The Romanesque church of the Benedictine monastery of All Saints (Allerheiligen) in Schaffhausen was consecrated in 1103/1104, replacing the church consecrated in 1064 of the first complex of the monastery founded by Count Eberhard III of Nellenburg (1015-1078).

The church is a three-nave basilica with a transept in the style of the Hirsau building school. The church’s structure has remained unchanged in style to this day.

Since 1524, it has been a parish church, while the monastery was converted into a provostry. The Reformation came in 1529.

The narthex dates back to 1857, replacing the 12th-century hall that extended up to the still-preserved pilasters. The last major renovation of the church was in 1950.

The well-preserved Romanesque tower is richly structured, featuring round-arched friezes, girts, and arched windows. The former monastery complex includes the cloister, the herb garden, the Old Abbey, the New Abbey, the library and the music school.

The Old Abbey, the monastery chapels and the Gothic refectory house the Museum zu Allerheiligen today.

The Rhine Source Lighthouse

No mountain is too high for Swiss people, but what about the lighthouse on the Oberalp Pass at an altitude of 2,046 meters?

The Rhine Lighthouse is an hour’s walk from the source of the Rhine. The Gotthard massif is the source of four rivers: the Rhine, Reuss, Rhone and Ticino, flowing to all four quarters of the compass. The 85-kilometre-long hiking Trail Vier-Quellen-Weg (the Four Headwaters Trail) shows the way.

The Lighthouse is intended as a call to travel to the source of the Rhine, as a siren.  It was built in 2010 in the Swiss village of Alpnach, and then transported to the Oberalp Pass.

The Lighthouse is intended to serve as a visual icon for the entire Rhine region and its 50 million inhabitants. It is a replica of a Lighthouse in Hoek van Holland (the Netherlands), 1,233 kilometres from the Gotthard Massif. The original can be seen in the Maritime Museum of Rotterdam.

The lighthouse may be located on a beach again within 20 million years.

(More information: www.leuchtturm-rheinquelle.ch).

Open Air Museum Ballenberg

The open-air museum (Freilichtmuseum Ballenberg) features a collection of over 110 rural houses and farm buildings relocated from all over Switzerland. To furnish the buildings, the museum collects objects from rural life and farming before the advent of agriculture.

These items and related secondary information relate to earlier ways of living, social structures, and economic activities in the farming community, as well as crafts and commerce.

The site features magnificent farmhouses, humble workers’ quarters, alpine huts and stalls, barns, storehouses, washhouses, and drying ovens, providing architectural and socio-historical testimony to the everyday life and rural culture of the past. Gardens, fields, pastures and meadows, set up according to historical models, surround the farmsteads and houses.

Some craftspeople work with traditional tools in the buildings, while various theme exhibits give insight into scenes from rural pasts.

Moreover, approximately 250 farm animals, representing the full range of native domestic animals, provide lively scenes. However, to get a good impression of typical Swiss houses, one could also visit the nearby villages of Ballenberg and Brienz before or after visiting the museum.

(Further information: www.ballenberg.ch)

Impressions from the Open Air Museum Ballenberg