Zurich by Wick

On 2 March 1546, the Reformer Heinrich Bullinger wrote to Basel clergyman Oswald Myconius to inform him that Agatha Studler, a ‘notorious Circe’ (witch), had been sentenced to death. As she prayed for mercy, she was drowned instead of burnt. The illustration shows how she was thrown in the River Limmat.

From today’s perspective, it appears likely that the wealthy city-dwelling divorcée’s permissive and extravagant lifestyle was the cause of her undoing. Following accusations from a baker and his wife, she was thrown in the Wellenberg prison tower and tortured until she ‘confessed’ to poisoning and cursing other people. Such smears, judgements and incidents of torture are a bleak and unfortunate chapter in Zurich’s history.

God’s warning signs included natural disasters such as landslides and floods. The river Sihl burst its banks early in the morning on 7 July 1562. Every dam broke, and the Adliswil and Leimbach bridges were carried away by the waters. The covered bridge at St. Jakob was damaged, and part of it, too, was swept away.

In the whole-page illustration, the little church of St. Jakob pokes out of the waters, where the wooden bridge and cattle are seen to drift alongside people fishing for their belongings. The anonymous illustrator drew on a detail from the story on the image’s far right: ‘A cow came swimming down the Sihl on a black poplar tree, bringing its feed trough with it.’ The cow was safely pulled from the water.

The weight of the annual parish fair procession was too great, and on 11 September 1566, the Obere Brücke bridge by the Wasserkirche (later the Helmhausbrücke/Münsterbrücke) collapsed. Eight people drowned, including five children. The bridge’s collapse wasn’t unprecedented: back in 1375, the wooden Untere Brücke bridge had collapsed during a church procession on 4 June. However, according to the Reformed writer, the recurrence of tragedy did not move the authorities to call off the ‘papist’ religious ceremony.

The commentary is brief, but the illustration has been created with plenty of imagination and attention to detail. The mighty scoop wheel and the well can be seen, while in the background, the image depicts the Wellenberg prison tower and wooden palisades facing the lake.

In 1581, Wick recorded another Zurich bridge accident.

On 16 June 1570, a horse owned by Jakob Kuster spooked underneath the arcade at the Zunfthaus zur Zimmerleuten and demolished a potter’s stall with its cart. The victim of the damage immediately demanded 30 guilders. The men called in to settle the dispute, Governor (Statthalter) Wegmann and Bailiff Ziegler, did not respond to his claim for damages, and granted only a little more than half of what he asked.

This story of an incident in everyday city life, whose moral we may struggle to discern today, captured the collector and illustrator’s imagination. Behind the scene of the accident, with all the broken pottery and agitated people, he also depicted the cause of the commotion: the Limmat at high water had scared the horse.

The Wickiana collection records other accidents befalling humans and animals.

On 29 September 1571, Michaelmas, the people of Zurich were confused by the sun. In the morning, it shone golden yellow, and at noon it flooded blood-red into every building, as if red panels had been placed on the windows. In the evening, it turned white like the moon and seemed to go out. A worried Wick listed several previous disastrous events preceded by the same sign.

The illustrator gave the red planet two eyes, a big, bulbous nose, and full lips. On the banks of the Limmat opposite the Fraumünster cathedral, four gesticulating citizens discuss the spectacle. Pointing figures like this were also popular in printed pamphlets. Wick gathered reports of other celestial events.

On 5 May 1572, lightning struck the Zurich Grossmünster’s tower and set it on fire. While the damage took just a day to repair, the fact that the Grossmünster – ‘the epicentre of the Zurich Reformation’ according to Luca Beeler – had been hit by lightning could not be written off as a mere freak weather event. This was also suspected to be a warning or punishment from God, as an ominous blood-red sun was said to have appeared in the skies over Zurich at the time.

Peopled with many characters, the illustration recalls the style known as outsider art or art brut, which challenges prevailing artistic conventions with storytelling, expression and subjectivity.

Wick recorded many lightning strikes and their sometimes harrowing consequences, interpreting them as evidence of God’s might.

On 12 April 1579, the lovelorn emissary of Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria threw himself out of a window of the Zum Schwert inn into the Limmat and to his death. Wick vividly depicted this Zurich romantic tragedy, believing it to be further proof of the ‘turbulent time’ at hand.

While the depiction of the building with the oversized sword appeared unambitious and, according to Josef Zemp, not reflective of reality, the illustrator spent time on specific details: the crown glass window panes, the folds of the nightshirt worn by the emissary falling down, the scoop wheel and the clothing of the three figures on the bridge.

The Wickiana collection includes further reports of deaths caused by one’s own hand (not for the faint of heart).

The writer claims this night-time incident truly happened in Zurich: bright figures assembled in the Grossmünster churchyard for a dance of death.

The anonymous illustrator captured the ghost for posterity: in the skies, four especially bright stars and the moon join the dance. The detailed architectural design of the Grossmünster seems to support the claim for authenticity. The illustrator carefully depicted the brickwork, the clerestory, the church towers – which still had pointed spires around 1581 – and the earlier outside staircase. He may have used a print as his template.

The Wickiana collection contains other reports of ghost sightings.

On 10 February 1585, tanners and butchers spent the evening drinking on the Limmatstein, also known as the Metzgerstein. When water levels were low, a large glacial erratic beneath the Rathausbrücke bridge protruded from the water as a wide slab of rock and, as the drawing shows, offered ample room for a table and benches.

Thanks to the generosity of five citizens and the proprietor of Zum Schwert, the goblets of wine overflow.

Proportions mattered little to the illustrator, but they prized details: the little fisherman’s hut with its fishing traps, the scoop wheel on the Untere Brücke bridge, the buildings by the banks. A tanner works in the water outside the prison.

As the Metzgerstein obstructed shipping, it was largely destroyed in 1823 and fully demolished in 1881 when the bridge was rebuilt.

The whole-page illustration can be found in the second-to-last volume. According to Matthias Senn, its illustrations are particularly valuable from an artistic perspective. The city in the bottom half of the picture may have been based on Jos Murer’s detailed landscape illustration (1576). The roofs are all the same shade of vermilion red.

You can make out the mills and water wheels on the Limmat, and even the well on the Rathausbrücke bridge. The prison tower appears perilously close to the wooden bridge. The illustrator didn’t take the city wall between the Augustinian Church and the Werkhof too seriously, either. He omitted towers and added a surprising central gateway.

Zurich is devoid of people, but there’s a little more action on the mountainside: the route to Stettbach is being extended. During the great famine, road-building on the Zürichberg offered 300 workers gainful employment.