Die Sebalduskirche in Nürnberg: Bild und Gesellschaft im Zeitalter der Gotik und Renaissance (review)

Visitors entering the Church of St. Sebaldus in Nuremberg can be forgiven for thinking that they have stepped into an extraordinary museum housing some of the best Gothic and early Renaissance art in Germany. Although Nuremberg embraced Lutheranism in 1525, vigilant action by the town council plus strong laws protecting private property, including pious donations to local churches, minimized iconoclasm. As a result, St. Sebaldus and St. Lorenz, the parish churches for the north and south halves of this walled city, still retain much of their original artistic embellishments. Surprisingly, Gerhard Weilandt’s monumental new study of St. Sebaldus is the first truly comprehensive monograph about either church.

The author, a Privatdozent at the Technical University in Berlin, offers a richly contextualized history of the church’s architecture and art up to the advent of the Reformation. Drawing heavily upon archival sources as well as the wealth of old drawings, prints, and pre-1945 photographs, he demonstrates that the artistic display in St. Sebaldus was once far greater than today. Part 1 treats the architectural history of the current building from its origins in the 1230s, as still visible in the Romanesque west choir and nave, to the airy eastern hall choir added between 1361 and 1372. Weilandt traces the pictorial manifestations of the cults of St. Sebaldus and of Corpus Christi. He conjectures that the original decoration of the eastern choir, completed in 1379, reflected the patrician city council’s victory over and suppression of local guilds in the late 1340s. The council assigned specific bays or piers to elite families who then commissioned stained glass windows and/or commemorative monuments. As a result, the choir functioned as a highly visible statement of patrician authority even in the sphere of religion.

Part 2 addresses how the physical space of the church was decorated and used. Weilandt does a marvelous job of reconstructing the church’s artistic programs. The task is daunting since just six of the original fifteen altarpieces survive. Here and in the catalogue (see below), he charts the history of each altar over the centuries. He identifies numerous woven antependia and tapestries, now scattered among several museums, which formerly adorned these altars. Weilandt describes how altars dedicated to the Virgin Mary, St. John, and the Apostles, once situated at the entrance to the choir, provided a unified devotional zone for the laity. Particularly illuminating are the lengthy discussions about the church’s annual processions, notably the Finding of the True Cross (May 3) and Corpus Christi, and about a special site, now destroyed, in the ambulatory for pilgrims who came to venerate St. Sebaldus.

Part 3 explores the renovations starting in 1493. This included the creation of several stained glass windows, designed by Albrecht Dürer and Hans von Kulmbach, among others, in the choir. Influential new patrician patrons commissioned impressive epitaphs, mural paintings, and commemorative sculptures. Grandest of all objects is the Vischer family’s celebrated brass shrine of St. Sebaldus, the church’s and Nuremberg’s patron.

After a brief conclusion, the author includes an invaluable catalogue of the church’s fifteen pre-Reformation altars (part 5). Weilandt provides information about each altar’s consecration; physical position; benefices; liturgical needs including relevant feast days; associated indulgences; inventories of special endowments; altar cloths, lamps, and candle holders; reliquaries; tombs and epitaphs linked with and located near the altar; and accompanying sculptures, paintings, and stained glass windows. Much of documentation about liturgical colors and vestments as well as the instructions for outfitting each altar is contained in the Mesnerpflichtbuch, or sacristan’s duty book, of 1482. Very few churches have or ever had such comprehensive information about the ever-changing appearance of the building during the course of the year.

The book’s intellectual weight is matched by its physical heft. The author and publisher have taken...