Detail of the bird's eye view of the city of Basle, from the inner council chamber of Basle town hall

Description

In 1663 the mayors Niklaus Rippel and Rudolf Wettstein and the master guildsmen Benedict Socin and Andreas Burckhardt commissioned a monopartite glass painting after the bird's eye view plan of the city of Basle made by Matthäus Merian in 1642. The city, depicted in a warm grey colour, is seen from the north. The section illustrated here shows the area adjoining the inner city wall formerly occupied by the convent of the Barfüsserkirche, the upkeep of which had been the responsibility of the neighbouring hospital (marked 12) since the Reformation. Although in the C17 the nave of the Barfüsserkirche continued to be used for worship, the choir was used as a grain store and the city mental asylum and alms office were housed in the cloister and other former convent buildings. The convent of St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen (10) located just outside the city walls, had also been secularised and was at that time uninhabited.