Wunstorf

Title

Wunstorf

Description

General view of the town of Wunstorf in Lower Saxony with the town church of St. Bartholomew and two representations of coats of arms, on the right the coat of arms of Wunstorf.

ca. 1650

Artist

Merian (1593-1650)

Matthäus Merian (1593 – 1650) , born in Basel, learned the art of copperplate engraving in Zurich and subsequently worked and studied in Strasbourg, Nancy, and Paris, before returning to Basel in 1615. The following year he moved to Frankfurt, Germany where he worked for the publisher Johann Theodor de Bry. He married his daughter, Maria Magdalena 1617. In 1620 they moved back to Basel, only to return three years later to Frankfurt, where Merian took over the publishing house of his father-in-law after de Bry's death in 1623. In 1626 he became a citizen of Frankfurt and could henceforth work as an independent publisher. He is the father of Maria Sibylla Merian, who later published her the famous and wellknown studies of flowers, insects and butterflies.

Historical Description

Wunstorf is a medium-sized town and independent municipality in the Hannover region of Lower Saxony on the Steinhuder Meer. The name of the town is derived from the early village settlement "Wonherestorpe", which existed around 700, which Louis the German put under royal protection in 871 and gave the monastery Kanonissenstift in Wunstorf the immunity rights. In 1228 a castle in Wunstorf is mentioned for the first time. It was built by the Bishop of Minden and the Count of Roden. In 1446 the counts of Wunstorf sold their county to the bishop of Hildesheim. In 1624 the army led by Johann T'Serclaes of Tilly sacked the town. A dragoon regiment of the Prince of Wales made the town a garrison town in 1788. After 1804 Prussians, Swedes, English and French marched in one after another. Until 1813 the municipal administration was carried out by a Maire. After that, Russian troops moved in for two years. For the years 1816 to 1874 Wunstorf became the location for the mounted artillery of the new Hanoverian army. In 1847, Wunstorf station was built as an island railroad station, making Wunstorf a railroad junction for the Hanover-Minden and Wunstorf-Bremen railroad lines.