Gallery

 

Above the variedly shaped houses the c.urches rise sternly and solemnly: they were built principally under the Teutonic Order. Built of bricks, austere and stern, they have retained their medieval characteristic. The ancient Frauengasse leads up to the most important ,,Marienkirche”. the Church of St. Mary. a work of colossal effect without and within. Its erection was begun about 1280 and finished only in 1502. Above the Gothic structure the massive blunt tower built in 1359— 1466 soars to some 76 metres. For many hundred years this colossal tower has looked dorm on going and coming generations of Danzig citizens. In simple and solemn majesty thewalls of this gigantic building rise.

The interior correšponds to the exterior. A wide hall consisting of a nave and two side aisles, rests its net-like star-sown groined roof on 28 pillars. Between the windows mighty buttresses run into the hall forming a number of chapels. The Church is full of works of art, treasures, pictures, altars, and monuments. Amongst the art treasures the most important is the .,Last Judgement” painted by Hans Memling, in 1467 wich is in St. Dorothy’s Chapel. The High Altar by Michael Schwarz (1518) is very remarkable, as also the bronze f3aptistry and railings (1554), the Crucifix in the Chapel of the 11 000 virgins, the large Organ, the Gothic Tabernacle (1482), which is in the North transept, the artistic but unfortunately ruined Astronomical Clock by Hans Düringer (1464), and the treasury with costly vestments, frontals, and other valuable objects of art. The modern painted glass windows are worthy of note, and also the bronze screen before St. Reinhold’s Chapel. In this Chapel is a beautiful Altar Reredos illustrating the life of the Virgin Mary (1516), a figure of St. Reinhold, a delightful statue of the Virgin and Child, and a Pieta (early 15 th. cen tury) both of painted standstoie.

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 48 - July - August - September - 1985, Page 27.