Basel Historical Museum, Basel, Switzerland

Opened in 1894, the Basel Historical Museum is one of the largest and most important museums of its kind in Switzerland. The museum is divided into four sections (buildings), three of which are within the city of Basel. These are Barfüsserkirche, Haus zum Kirschgarten and the Musikmuseum. The fourth section, the Coach and Carriage Museum lies slightly outside Basel, in the neighbouring town of Münchenstein.

The main part of the museum is located in the Barfüsserkirche in the centre of Basel. The museum houses the Upper Rhine’s most comprehensive cultural history collection and the display area covers 6,200 square meters. The exhibition presents objects documenting handicraft traditions and everyday culture from ages past. Its focus is on the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance up to the Baroque period.

Leading highlights include: the Basel Cathedral treasure, the Basel and Strasbourg tapestries, the fragments of Basel’s dance of death, altars and ecclesiastical graphic works, the estate of Erasmus of Rotterdam, the coin cabinet and glass painting. The museum also preserves old cabinets of curiosities which have been bequeathed, as Amerbach cabinet and Faesch cabinet, which works great collectors Basel sixteenth and seventeenth century.

References:

Wikipedia

Museums in Switzerland

User Reviews

Michael Wu PhD (13 days ago)
Very popular museum with a big plaza fill with plenty of people eating at lunch time.

Emma Sheeran (3 months ago)
Such a fascinating museum. Unexpectedly large so allow a good chunk of time to visit!

Edmond O'Flynn (3 months ago)
Definitely not a small museum, I spent hours here. Interesting history from the Celts to modern day Basel. I learned a lot!

Jonathan David Bossio (3 months ago)
All signs were only in German. Why not also in French and Italian? I find that totally not acceptable. There is a webpage that one can use to search for every item in the museum and gives you information in several languages, but first, this depends on the wifi connection which is not great everywhere in the museum, and then it takes way too much time to search for everything in the museum. The content though was interesting but the experience was not good. I do not recommend it unless you can read German.

Sébastien Potot (4 months ago)
Interesting place. A pity that only à part of the descriptions are in English or French.

Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings

Photo from Flickr, copyright Ana Paula Hirama

Historic Site of the week

Holy Trinity Column

The Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc is a Baroque monument built in 1716–1754 in honour of God. The main purpose was a spectacular celebration of Catholic Church and faith, partly caused by feeling of gratitude for ending a plague, which struck Moravia between 1713 and 1715. The column was also understood to be an expression of local patriotism, since all artists and master craftsmen working on this monument were Olomouc citizens, and almost all depicted saints were connected with the city of Olomouc in some way. The column is the biggest Baroque sculptural group in the Czech Republic. In 2000 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list.

The column is dominated by gilded copper sculptures of the Holy Trinity accompanied by the Archangel Gabriel on the top and the Assumption of the Virgin beneath it.

The base of the column, in three levels, is surrounded by 18 more stone sculptures of saints and 14 reliefs in elaborate cartouches. At the uppermost stage are saints connected with Jesus’ earth life – his mother’s parents St. Anne and St. Joachim, his foster-father St. Joseph, and St. John the Baptist, who was preparing his coming – who are accompanied by St. Lawrence and St. Jerome, saints to whom the chapel in the Olomouc town hall was dedicated. Three reliefs represent the Three theological virtues Faith, Hope, and Love.

Below them, the second stage is dedicated to Moravian saints St. Cyril and St. Methodius, who came to Great Moravia to spread Christianity in 863, St. Blaise, in whose name one of the main Olomouc churches is consecrated, and patrons of neighbouring Bohemia St. Adalbert of Prague and St. John of Nepomuk, whose following was very strong there as well.

In the lowest stage one can see the figures of an Austrian patron St. Maurice and a Bohemian patron St. Wenceslas, in whose names two important Olomouc churches were consecrated, another Austrian patron St. Florian, who was also viewed as a protector against various disasters, especially fire, St. John of Capistrano, who used to preach in Olomouc, St. Anthony of Padua, a member of the Franciscan Order, which owned an important monastery in Olomouc, and St. Aloysius Gonzaga, a patron of students. His sculpture showed that Olomouc was very proud of its university. Reliefs of all twelve apostles are placed among these sculptures.

The column also houses a small chapel inside with reliefs depicting Cain's offering from his crop, Abel's offering of firstlings of his flock, Noah's first burnt offering after the Flood, Abraham's offering of Isaac and of a lamb, and Jesus' death. The cities of Jerusalem and Olomouc can be seen in the background of the last mentioned relief.

Do you know an ancient castle or magnificent church near you?

Why not share it with other people interested in history? You can add your own historic sites and attractions to SpottingHistory.com.

It's absolutely free, easy, and doesn't even need registration!

Upload data

Basel Historical Museum

Address

Details

More Information

Rating

Interesting Sites Nearby

User Reviews

Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings

Rhodes, The Island of Knights

Great Spa Towns of Europe

History of Guernsey & Jersey

Historic Site of the week

Holy Trinity Column

Looks like you are a history fan!