Pfeiferbrunnen

The Piper fountain in the Hospital Lane in Bern and belongs to the old town of Bern fountain from the 16th century.

It was created 1545/46 by Hans Gieng and stood until 1638 between Ryffli and Storchengässchen front of the Gasthof zum Kreuz, who was called to the stork since 1594 inn. Therefore she called the fountain formerly Stork Fountain. This inn often lived traveling minstrels. That could be one reason why the fountain sculpture depicting a bagpipe player. The figure is a free Nachgestaltung of 1514 copper engraving by Albrecht Dürer The bagpipers. Originally, it was at this figure probably a itinerant musicians.

In the seventies of the 19th century, this fountain was in a very bad condition. So you could not find, for example, what was the parchment for a label and there was no one who knew the original inscription. On the occasion of the renovation of the fountain in 1874, then the parchment with the inscription was Pfyffer The Freedom 1507 letter provided, this refers to the fact that the Brotherhood of the minstrels in 1507 was given the charter of freedom of the city. During this renovation, the fountain sculpture was probably the first time dressed in the professional colors as they were worn by the city pipers earlier.

In the following years the octagonal fountain basin was found to be very defective, initially made ​​do with a cement mantle on the inside, which is said to have initially also proven very good. Already establishing celebration had to be renovated again and painted the fountain. On the occasion of this renovation was to the well, the new, still existing shell that was made by the sculptor Laurenti. 1905 and 1926, the fountain was painted again new. For traffic reasons of Pfeiffer wells had to be postponed, 1919. On this occasion the Sudeltrog was removed in addition.

The Piper on the fountain served Urs Klauser of the tritone (ensemble) as a template for his reconstruction of a Swiss bagpipe

Dürer's Bagpipes

Brunnenfigur frontal