Volume 1

St. Petersburgh: a journal of travels to and from that capital. Through Flanders, the Rhenish provinces, Prussia, Russia, Poland, Silesia, Saxony, the federated states of Germany, and France / by A.B. Granville.

  • Granville, A. B. (Augustus Bozzi), 1783-1872.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: St. Petersburgh: a journal of travels to and from that capital. Through Flanders, the Rhenish provinces, Prussia, Russia, Poland, Silesia, Saxony, the federated states of Germany, and France / by A.B. Granville. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    periods, constituting what in other cities is styled the Hotel de Ville. The only remarkable parts of this grotesque structure, are the great banqueting hall, in which the coronation-dinner, given to .the newly-elected Emperor, used to take place; and the archives of the city, where the celebrated charter, the Bulla Aurea, or Golden Bull, is preserved. Around the banqueting hall, the portraits of the Emperors since Conrad I. are still visible, painted in fresco on the wall. The Golden Bull is a venerable document written on parchment, measuring several feet in length, and passed in the year 1356, during the reign of the Emperor Charles IV. It settles the manner of electing the Emperor; fixes the number of electors; declares the dignity of electors to be equal to that of kings; and constitutes high treason every attempt or conspiracy against their persons. By one of its enactments, the place of election is fixed at Frankfort, and that of the coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. This singular charter, the only real good of which has been to prove that an elective chief magistracy, whether under the dignified name of Emperor, or the less sounding title of President, or Consul, carries within itself the seeds of destruction, begins with the curious apophthegm, “ Omne regnum in se divisum desolabiturthe import of which, however, seems not to have made a due impression on the successive electors. Having been struck by the appearance of the building which contains the public or Stadt library, I took a conve- nient opportunity of visiting it. The distance at which this establishment has been placed from the more inhabited parts of the city, and the little use which can be made of it, owing to the singular regulation which limits the time of admission to one hour only on two days, and to two hours on two other days of the week, must be matter of regret to those who are attached to literature. The library contains upwards of fifty thousand volumes, including some