Old University

The nucleus of Würzburg University

In 1582, Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn founded the University of Würzburg - in a successful "second attempt" after the first foundation in 1402. The Würzburg prince-bishop had a colossal building erected for his university, including a university church. This building is still a showpiece of Würzburg city centre today.

Neubaustraße, Schönthalstraße and Domerschulstraße surround Würzburg's Old University. Today, it essentially looks as it did when Prince-Bishop Julius Echter had it built between 1582 and 1591. Back then, the massive Renaissance building provided space for the entire university. Today, only the Faculty of Law is located there. The former university church, the Neubaukirche, serves the university as a ceremonial and event hall.

The foundation stone for the Old University was laid on 11 June 1582 - on the site of the abandoned St Ulrich Convent of the Benedictine nuns, on the southern edge of the old town. Echter had the remains of the convent demolished to make room for a spacious university building. The plans for this came from the Electorate of Mainz master builder Georg Robin (1522-1592): A four-storey building surrounds an almost square inner courtyard, which is closed off to the south by the university church.

The east wing, which housed the seminary, was built by 1585. This was followed by the north wing with lecture theatres and offices, then the west wing with a large assembly hall, banqueting and lecture theatres and rooms for the rector. Construction of the university church began in 1586 and was consecrated in 1591. With this ceremonial act, Echter demonstratively completed the construction of his university.

Relief above the portal to the courtyard

Echter himself was immortalised on a relief that is emblazoned above the Renaissance portal to the inner courtyard. It shows the "Outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Mary and the Apostles"; the prince-bishop is kneeling in the foreground of the depiction. Three sculptors worked on the relief in succession: first Erhard Barg from Schwäbisch Hall, who also included "Science" and "Diligence" as allegorical figures in the relief. Johann von Beundum created the apostles, and Paulus Michel moulded the prince-bishop.

Philosophy, theology, law and medicine: these were the academic disciplines at the time Julius Echter founded the university. The Prince-Bishop of Würzburg did not lay the foundations for the Faculty of Medicine right from the start. It was not until 1593 that he appointed the Dutchmen Adrian van Roomen and Gottfried Steegh, whom he also employed as his personal physicians, to medical professorships. At that time, medicine was housed in the Juliusspital, which Echter had built around 1585.

Lectures in 1604

It is not known exactly what was taught at the university in its early years. The oldest surviving lecture catalogues, the Lektionskataloge, date from the period 1604 to 1609 and show, for example, that classical languages, grammar, rhetoric and dialectics were on the timetable in the Faculty of Arts. Every student had to complete these lessons in the same way as a foundation course.

Shortly after the university was founded, there was an average of between 150 and 210 new enrolments per year. When Würzburg was under Swedish rule during the Thirty Years' War from 1631 to 1634, the number of students fell to zero: students and professors had fled, as had the prince-bishop himself. However, students began to return as early as 1636, and soon after the war, at the beginning of the 1650s, there were 220 new enrolments. With this number, Würzburg was a mid-table university at the time.

University library since 1617

University founder Julius Echter died in 1617 and a university library was established two years after his death: His successor, Prince-Bishop Johann Gottfried von Aschhausen, had a collection of books purchased in 1619 and placed in the university building.

Almost 200 years later, from 1803, the collection grew enormously: due to the expropriation of church property in the course of secularisation, the library received numerous books, including valuable manuscripts from the cathedral library and from monasteries. In 1806, it had over 25,500 volumes.

Teaching in the German language

In the 18th century, the University of Würzburg had an average of between 200 and 300 new enrolments per year, and the teaching staff comprised around 40 people. Most students were enrolled in the Faculty of Arts, with rather few enrolled in theology and law and even fewer in medicine. Prince-Bishop Friedrich Karl von Schönborn (term of office 1729-1746) admitted non-Catholic students for the first time and introduced German as the language of instruction. Previously, Latin had been taught.

Lack of space becomes apparent

From the middle of the 19th century, the university flourished. One reason for this was the incipient boom in the natural sciences and medicine. In 1854, the number of students reached its first peak of 818 - this meant that there were more students in Würzburg than at the better-known universities of Jena, Halle, Göttingen or Heidelberg. In 1876 there were already 1,028 students, and in 1888 there were 1,624.

Slowly but surely, the Old University became too small. New building land was found in the north of the city, on the Pleicherwall. There, the dismantling of the fortifications had created space for the expansion of the city and the university. The university gradually built numerous institutes and clinics for the emerging natural sciences and medicine on this site.

New building on Sanderring brings relief

But all this was not enough to alleviate the lack of space in the old university. There were not only classrooms, but also natural science and art history collections, flats for the rector and professors, administration and library. Around 1870, the idea of constructing a new building for the library therefore emerged. However, this idea changed and it was finally decided to build a new main building on today's Sanderring. It was inaugurated in 1896.

Second World War and reconstruction

At the end of the Second World War, the Old University and Neubaukirche were also badly damaged in the British bombing raid on 16 March 1945. The University Library lost around 80 per cent of its holdings on that day. In the summer of 1945, lecturers and students took part in clearing the rubble from the destroyed university buildings and set about rebuilding them. By the summer of 1946, 1,279 students were enrolled again.

In the 1950s, the Old University was reconstructed to some extent with scarce resources in order to make it usable again. In the following years, the Martin von Wagner Museum, and with it part of the university collections, moved from the Old University to the south wing of the Residence (1963). The University Library moved out in 1981 to its new building on the Hubland Campus.

Fundamental refurbishment until 2002

From 1989 onwards, the Old University was thoroughly renovated at a cost of 7.3 million euros without interrupting operations. Parts of the building that had been destroyed were reconstructed and new fixtures and fittings were modelled on historical forms and materials in order to preserve an important listed building in Würzburg's cityscape in its historical form. The refurbishment was completed in 2002.

Robert Emmerich

Sources: "Kleine Geschichte der Würzburger Universität" by Peter Süß, University Archive, State Building Authority, University Library