Cassel

Cassel, or KASSEL, chief town of the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, and the old capital of the former electorate of Hesse-Cassel, is pleasantly situated on both sides of the navigable Fulda, 120 miles by rail NNE. of Frankfurt-on-Main, and 233 WSW. of Berlin. Pop. (1875) 53,043; (1890) 72,447. The town is one of the most attractive provincial capitals in Germany. Its oldest part consists of a few very narrow, crooked streets, close to the river; the more modern parts are situated on gentle hills. The 'upper new town' was founded by French refugees in 1688. Cassel is partially walled. In the Friedrichs-Platz, the largest square in any German town, stand the Elector's palace, a comparatively mean structure, the military school, and the large Museum Fredericianum, erected in 1769-79, which has a library of 100,000 volumes and some valuable MSS., besides collections of plaster-casts, antiquities, coins, &c. The large new law-courts were erected in 1880 on the site of the Kattenburg, a costly and ambitious palace projected in 1820, which, however, remained unfinished from 1821 till 1869, when its materials were used in the construction of the new picture-gallery. The latter, opened in 1877, contains about 1400 paintings, including some excellent specimens of Dutch and other old masters. Cassel has an observatory, and is the seat of a number of learned and scientific associations. It carries on manufactures of locomotives and steam-engines, carriages, philosophical and mathematical instruments, cotton and linen fabrics, plate, and sugar. Cassel is the birthplace of the chemists Bunsen and Kolbe; the brothers Grimm here wrote their famous fairy-tales between 1806 and 1814; and Spohr conducted the orchestra of the theatre from 1822 till 1859. Cassel appears to have existed as early as the 10th century under the name of Chassala. From 1807 to 1813 it was the capital of the kingdom of Westphalia. The gardens of Wilhelmshöhe (1787-96)—which was assigned to Napoleon III. as a residence after his fall at Sedan, in September 1870—with their splendid fountains and cascades, and the colossal statue of Hercules, within the hollow of whose club eight persons can stand at one time, are three miles from Cassel.