Melanchthonhaus Wittenberg

The Melanchthon House in Wittenberg is one of the most beautiful buildings of the city. The Renaissance building with its late Gothic wider windows and the arched staggered gable houses the furnished study and death room of Philipp Melanchthon, in which he and his family lived. Since 1954, the house serves as a museum, in which one makes accessible Philipp Melanchthon's life and work to the public. Here, in a bauwerk restrained authenticity paintings, prints and manuscripts are shown by Melanchthon and his contemporaries. Since 1996, the Melanchthon House as part of the Reformation sites in the Lutherstadt Wittenberg World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

History

Philipp Melanchthon received in 1518 the appointment to a professorship in Wittenberg. After his marriage to Katharina Krapp on November 25, 1520 both purchased the land Collegienstraße 62 First, consisted on the plot a rapidly decaying building with earth house, Melanchthon also " shop" called.

As Melanchthon in 1536 threatened to move away from Wittenberg, you built it at the expense of the Elector John Frederick I, the Generous, and the University of the new three-storey house with a big subsequent scholars garden. This led him in 1537 to stay in Wittenberg, since elevated him to the status of owning a full citizen with the associated rights and the house had running water due to the connection to the Röhrwassersystem already in 1556.

After Melanchthon's death on 19 April 1560 roadside location, living and dying room was allegedly daubed black and the house was used in the course as a professor at the University of apartment. Between 1796 and 1808 stables were next to an existing farm building, built for horses and pigs 1810, the living, study and death room was reconstructed and opened to the public. 1845 the building was sold from a private collection to the Prussian state and subjected to renovation. Here murals were uncovered on the second floor and rebuilt a window with round medieval stained glass windows.

For further repair work in 1897 more paintings have been found in the death chamber. Since these were only preserved in fragments, it was decided to recreations. Since that time the building interior has its present appearance in principle. After the eastern neighbor's house was destroyed in an air raid on 20 April 1945, removed to the resulting farm buildings below. In 1954, the local history museum was established in Melanchthon's house.

Museum on the life and work of Melanchthon

An independent museum institution that made available to the public the life and work of Philipp Melanchthon, in 1967 initiated by the municipal cultural administration. From 1983 ( Luther anniversary ) the Melanchthonhaus developed as a counterweight to Luther Hall and stood above all the humanist Melanchthon in the foreground.

As a result of the experience itself transformed the museum concept in 1997 in the dauerausstellenden Melanchthon motto "Ad fontes " ( " to the sources ", ie back to the original texts of faith and humanism ).