Page:EB1911 - Volume 16.djvu/420

 under the name of the Elster, discharge themselves into the Saale. The climate, though not generally unhealthy, may be inclement in winter and hot in summer.

Leipzig is one of the most enterprising and prosperous of German towns, and in point of trade and industries ranks among German cities immediately after Berlin and Hamburg. It possesses the third largest German university, is the seat of the supreme tribunal of the German empire and the headquarters of the XIX. (Saxon) army corps, and forms one of the most prominent literary and musical centres in Europe. Its general aspect is imposing, owing to the number of new public buildings erected during the last 20 years of the 19th century. It consists of the old, or inner city, surrounded by a wide and pleasant promenade laid out on the site of the old fortifications, and of the very much more extensive inner and outer suburbs. Many thriving suburban villages, such as Reudnitz, Volkmarsdorf, Gohlis, Eutritzsch, Plagwitz and Lindenau, have been incorporated with the city, and with these accretions the population in 1905 amounted to 502,570. On the north-west the town is bordered by the fine public park and woods of the Rosenthal, and on the west by the Johanna Park and by pleasant groves leading along the banks of the Pleisse.

The old town, with its narrow streets and numerous houses of the 16th and 17th centuries, with their high-pitched roofs, preserves much of its quaint medieval aspect. The market square, lying almost in its centre, is of great interest. Upon it the four main business streets, the Grimmaische-, the Peters-, the Hain- and the Katharinen-strassen, converge, and its north side is occupied by the beautiful old Rathaus, a Gothic edifice built by the burgomaster Hieronymus Lotter in 1556, and containing life-size portraits of the Saxon rulers. Superseded by the new Rathaus, it has been restored and accommodates a municipal museum. Behind the market square and the main street lie a labyrinth of narrow streets interconnected by covered courtyards and alleys, with extensive warehouses and cellars. The whole, in the time of the great fairs, when every available place is packed with merchandise and thronged with a motley crowd, presents the semblance of an oriental bazaar. Close to the old Rathaus is Auerbach’s Hof, built about 1530 and interesting as being immortalized in Goethe’s Faust. It has a curious old wine vault (Keller) which contains a series of mural paintings of the 16th century, representing the legend on which the play is based. Near by is the picturesque Königshaus, for several centuries the palace of the Saxon monarchs in Leipzig and in which King Frederick Augustus I. was made prisoner by the Allies after the battle of Leipzig in October 1813. At the end of the Petersstrasse, in the south-west corner of the inner town and on the promenade, lay the Pleissenburg, or citadel, modelled, according to tradition, on that of Milan, and built early in the 13th century. Here Luther in 1519 held his momentous disputation. The round tower was long used as an observatory and the building as a barrack. With the exception of the tower, which has been encased and raised to double its former height—to 300 ft.—the citadel has been removed and its site is occupied by the majestic pile of the new Rathaus in Renaissance style, with the tower as its central feature. The business of Leipzig is chiefly concentrated in the inner city, but the headquarters of the book trade lie in the eastern suburb. Between the inner town and the latter lies the magnificent Augustusplatz, one of the most spacious squares in Europe. Upon it, on the side of the inner town and included within it, is the Augusteum, or main building of the university, a handsome edifice containing a splendid hall (1900), lecture rooms and archaeological collections; adjoining it is the Paulinerkirche, the university church. The other sides of the square are occupied by the new theatre, an imposing Renaissance structure, designed by C. F. Langhans, the post office and the museum of sculpture and painting, the latter faced by the Mende fountain. The churches of Leipzig are comparatively uninteresting. The oldest, in its present form, is the Paulinerkirche, built in 1229–1240, and restored in 1900, with a curiously grooved cloister; the largest in the inner town is the Thomaskirche, with a high-pitched roof dating from 1496, and memorable for its association with J. Sebastian Bach, who was organist here. Among others may be mentioned the new Gothic Petrikirche, with a lofty spire, in the south suburb. On the east is the Johanniskirche, round which raged the last conflict in the battle of 1813, when it suffered severely from cannon shot. In it is the tomb of Bach, and outside that of the poet Gellert. Opposite its main entrance is the Reformation monument, with bronze statues of Luther and Melanchthon, by Johann Schilling, unveiled in 1883. In the Johanna Park is the Lutherkirche (1886), and close at hand the Roman Catholic and English churches. To the south-west of the new Rathaus, lying beyond the Pleisse and between it and the Johanna Park, is the new academic quarter. Along the fine thoroughfares, noticeable among which is the Karl Tauchnitz Strasse, are closely grouped many striking buildings. Here is the new Gewandhaus, or Konzerthaus, built in 1880–1884, in which the famous concerts called after its name are given, the old Gewandhaus, or Drapers’ Hall, in the inner town having again been devoted to commercial use as a market hall during the fairs. Immediately opposite to it is the new university library, built in 1891, removed hither from the old monasterial buildings behind the Augusteum, and containing some 500,000 volumes and 5000 MSS. Behind that again is the academy of art, one wing of which accommodates the industrial art school; and close beside it are the school of technical arts and the conservatoire of music. Between the university library and the new Gewandhaus stands a monument of Mendelssohn (1892). Immediately to the east of the school of arts rises the grand pile of the supreme tribunal of the German empire, the Reichsgericht, which compares with the Reichstag building in Berlin. It was built in 1888–1895 from plans by Ludwig Hoffmann, and is distinguished for the symmetry and harmony of its proportions. It bears an imposing dome, 225 ft. high, crowned by a bronze figure of Truth by O. Lessing, 18 ft. high. Opposite, on the outer side of the Pleisse, are the district law-courts, large and substantial, though not specially imposing edifices. In the same quarter stands the Grassi Museum (1893–1896) for industrial art and ethnology, and a short distance away are the palatial buildings of the Reichs and Deutsche Banks. Farther east and lying in the centre of the book-trade quarter stand close together the Buchhändlerhaus (booksellers’ exchange), the great hall decorated with allegorical pictures by Sascha Schneider, and the Buchgewerbehaus, a museum of the book trade, both handsome red brick edifices in the German Renaissance style, erected in 1886–1890. South-west of these buildings, on the other side of the Johannisthal Park, are clustered the medical institutes and hospitals of the university—the infirmary, clinical and other hospitals, the physico-chemical institute, pathological institute, physiological institute, ophthalmic hospital, pharmacological institute, the schools of anatomy, the chemical laboratory, the zoological institute, the physico-mineralogical institute, the botanical garden and also the veterinary schools, deaf and dumb asylum, agricultural college and astronomical observatory. Among other noteworthy buildings in this quarter must be noted the Johannisstift, an asylum for the relief of the aged poor, with a handsome front and slender spire. On the north side of the inner town and on the promenade are the handsome exchange with library, and the reformed church, a pleasing edifice in late Gothic.

Leipzig has some interesting monuments; the Siegesdenkmal, commemorative of the wars of 1866 and 1870, on the market square, statues of Goethe, Leibnitz, Gellert, J. Sebastian Bach, Robert Schumann, Hahnemann, the homeopathist, and Bismarck. There are also many memorials of the battle of Leipzig, including an obelisk on the Randstädter-Steinweg, on the site of the bridge which was prematurely blown up, when Prince Poniatowski was drowned; a monument of cannon balls collected after the battle; a “relief” to Major Friccius, who stormed the outer Grimma gate; while on the battle plain itself and close to “Napoleonstein,” which commemorates Napoleon’s position on the last day of the battle, a gigantic obelisk surrounded by a garden has been planned for dedication on the hundredth anniversary of the battle (October 19, 1913).