Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-07-19
GREAT TIMES In ULM
Completion Of the Spire of the
Famous Cathedral
AFTER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS.
A Precesstsa showing Ul0's History
By Centuries-How the Cathedral
Was Built-A Protestant Structure
Intended ~ q Parish Church.
, Of THE EVENING SrAR

Correspondents Of The EVENING srAA
WIEsBADES, GERnANr, July
n In, the staid little city in wurtemberg,
lt has just been having gala time over
completion ss.as ., the s Ps e., to its old
No. days has given itself over to parade and
iesuElty in honor OF the event, attracting, OF
course, multitude Of outsiders 10 witness and
share IN its gaiety. The cap piece is on the
stately spire and at last the majestic old csthe
dral stands proudly forth the highest pinnscled
building in the world, overlapping all its kind
and overreaching in height by Is feet the ia
nous cathedral at Cologne. And was not such
an event, making the queer little old town of
Ulm the base Of the highest sacred edifice in
the world. well worthy o; noisy and enthusi-
astic celebration by the good burghers OF the
place? And right worthily have they done it
THE FESTIVITIES
opened on the morning OF Juno % with the
trial march of a magnificent historic process
sion In costume which was formally 70 take
place on the next day. Already a large num-
Der or strangers were in Ulm. and the trains
| were constantly bringing more. The streets
and houses of the town were grandly decorated
with flags, draperies wreaths festoons, &c. of
bunting, evergreens and the like, and gaiety
held the hour. In the evening the bells out of
the city rolled out festival chorus and all the
school children of the place with their teachers
accompanied by twelve bands of music
marched to the cathedral square, where songs
were sung and the bands played. At night the
cathedral Was illuminated by colored lights
making fascinating show. The next day was
sunday and visitors came pouring into the
| town-and so did rain. The rain was not to be
! lett out OF the program, and made itself mas
Ter OF the ceremonies. 1t came down in
| streams, drenching everything, and the grand
procession set for the day had TO be put off
until the next day to the great disappointment
OF the crowds. ThIrty-five long trains ran into
Ulm on this day, and its streets became almost
impossible from the press of people in
wretched, crestfallen crowds. Ulm, like all
German cities, is abundantly supplied with
| restaurants. but there not sitting room
enough IN them for the immense number of
| people, and many had to walk the streets in the
drenchlng rain to their supreme disgust. TAX
| ing, IN many instances, the first convenient
| train home What a mess the rain did make of
| it, as though il did not know that the highest
! spired structure in the world which had been
waiting 500 years for completion, wanted q
blowout on the occasion. Many prncely per-
| sonages and distinguished individuals were on
| hand, and on the afternoon of Sunday, the
18th, they had fine banquet of eighty-two
| covers in the old town house. In the evening
| Mendelssohns sublime oratorio Of Elijah was
| given in the cathedral by a chorus of 800 Sc
lected voices accompanied by appropriate in
| strumental music. How the gigantic old
building swelled can well be imagined.
THE GRAND PROCESSION.
On the afternoon of Monday, the 3Oth, the
long-arranged historical procession finally got
under way, favored by fine weather. 1t was a
| grand show and brought one sensibly back to
the days of old when fighting seemed to be the
| chief occupation Of man and the pen was not
yet mightier than the sword. About seven
L 49,. 81 l. A.
| sion and the costumes were elegant one being
| said to have cost as much 81, 060. The pro-
| cession was made up of groups, forty-two in
| all, presenting in tableau style the chief Incl
dents in the history Of Ulm since the COM
| mencement Of its cathedral The groups of
the fourteenth century showed the founding
| of the cathedral in the persons Of high ecclesi-
| astics, monks, nuns, town councilmen, patri-
clans, citizens, artists and guilds; those of the
fifteenth were opened by train Of merchants
| returning from Venice, who were being con-
Quoted into Ulm by the inhabitants thereof:
then came a group Of those notorious robber
knights OF old who were being brought in
as prisoners by armed citizens The groups
of the sixteenth century showed an entry in
state OF the Emperor Charles V into Ulm
| accompanied by Cardinal Granvella and the
| Duke of Alba, with divines, men of letters, pa
| tricians, citizens and maidens welcoming him
| and Spanish and German soldiers in his train
| Then came scenes taken from the life of the
/
merchant, hunting scenes, &C., and after that
| the seventeenth century with Wallenstein and
| his generals and soldiers and the fleeing coun-
| try people. Scenes from the Spanish war of
succession were given and then came q winding
up OF the procession with soldiers of the Napo-
| leonc period and of the present day surround
ing Germapla seated upon q wagon with allie
| gories Of peace and war. Thousands looked
upon the brilliant pageant with intense inter-
est and could not but pronounce it to be q very
| successful affair.
THE MAGNIFICENT CATHEDRAL.
The cathedral whose completion has been
celebrated is q magnificent piece Of Gothic
architecture, whose spire, by general agree
ment, is not only the highest but the stateliest
| in all christendom. The building is one of the
| finest specimens Of old German Gothic archi-
lecture that have come down to us and is dis
| tinguished for grandeur and boldness as well
as for harmony OF proportion. Ii covers 1853
square yards of ground and will hold about
| 3d. 900 people. Unlike most cathedrals il has
| no transept and has five naves, the central one
of which Is extraordinarily high, being 1877 feet
in height. The choir is SO feet high. The
length of the cathedral is 406 feet and its width
| l60. The cathedral was begun in 1877, toward
the close Of the middle ages, and during its his
| tory has had eleven different architects the
most noted OF whom have been Ulrich En-
singer and Matthew Boblinger in its early his
tory aud August Boyer in recent times, who has
been director since 1881 Of the work of COM
pletion- Both the former had created such
fame for themselves before they were called to
work upon the cathedral at Ulm that their
names were favorably known not only beyond
the Rhine but across the Alps into Italy. En-
singer first became connected with the con-
struction Of the building in 1892, fifteen years
after its commencement, and he il was who
gave to it it's direction, but he carried
the structure forward only as far as
the first third Of the square story of
the tower, as he accepted in 1899 the conduct
Of the work on the north tower of the cathe-
dral at Strasburg, which, by the way, bears
quite resemblance to the tower Of the Ulm
cathedral; but it is considered possible that he
still continued to exercise influence over the
work on the Ulm edifce, although he hae given
up the actual management of it. His family,
anyway, had the direction of the work for
seventy years, in the persons of q son, son-in-
law and two grandsons. Boblinger, the second
one to lay a marked impress upon the char
acter Of the cathedral, was appointed architect
in 1477, and continued to direct the work in
that capacity until 1892, when his superiutend-
ence came to q sudden and unexpected end, 40
cording TO popular tradition, by two stones
happening to fall from the arch Of the tower
one Sunday while preaching was going on in
the cathedral, which 30 irritated and excited
the people of Ulm that Boblinger had TO Zee in
haste from the place. But q record stone in
the cathedral makes Boblinger's last work 10
have been in 1894 He had carried the base
ment story Of the tower, an inscription in
the cathedral reads, from las to $40 Ulm work