Heidelberg

Heidelberg, an ancient city of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, extends for about 3 miles along the left bank of the river Neckar, in one of the most beautiful districts in the country, 13 miles by rail SE. of Mannheim and 54 S. of Frankfort-on-the-Main. It lies 380 feet above sea-level, at the base of the Königsstuhl (1863 feet). Among its most important buildings are the church of the Holy Ghost, a splendid example of Late Gothic architecture, in which service according to the Catholic and Protestant rituals is simultaneously carried on; the church of St Peter's, on the door of which Jerome of Prague nailed his celebrated theses; and the magnificent ruins of the castle, which stand on a hill 330 feet above the town. Begun at the close of the 13th century, and added to in 1410, 1559, and 1607, it was formerly the residence of the Electors Palatine, and was in great part destroyed by the French in 1689 and 1693, and further injured by lightning in 1764. In the cellar under the castle is the famous Heidelberg Tun, once capable of containing 50,000 gallons of wine. Heidelberg is celebrated for its university, which was founded by the Elector Rupert I. in 1386, and continued to flourish until the period of the Thirty Years' War, when it began to decline. In 1802, however, when the town with the surrounding territory was assigned to the Grand-duke of Baden, a new era commenced for the university, and it rapidly became famous. It comprises faculties of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy, has about 110 professors and lecturers, and is attended by about 800 students. Its library consists of some 500,000 volumes and 4700 MSS. Many of the most famous German scholars have been professors here—Renchlin, Ecolampadius, Spanheim, Puffendorf, Voss, Schlosser, Creuzer, Gervinus, Paulus, Kuno Fischer, Helmholtz, Bunsen, Bluntschli, &c. The quincentenary of the university was celebrated with elaborate ceremony in 1886. Heidelberg, originally an appanage of the bishopric of Worms, became in the end of the 12th century the seat of the Counts Palatine, and continued to be so for nearly six centuries. After the Reformation Heidelberg was long the headquarters of German Calvinism, and gave its name to a famous Calvinistic Catechism (q.v.). The trade is chiefly in books, tobacco, beer, and wine. The town suffered much during the Thirty Years' War, was savagely treated by the French in 1689, and was in 1693 almost totally destroyed by them. Pop. (1871) 19,988; (1890) 31,739, of whom a third are Catholics and about 800 Jews. See works by Oncken (3d ed. 1885), Drum (1884), and Thorbecke (1886); also The Century Magazine, August 1886.