page_title: Basel Minster
section_title: Second church structure - the Heinrich Münster
hierarchical_section_title: Basel Minster / Building history / Second church structure - the Heinrich Münster
caption_attribution_description: English: Design for Organ Shutters for Basel Cathedral, parts 1 &amp; 2, left side. Pen and ink and brush over preliminary chalk drawing, brown and grey wash, Kunstmuseum Basel. Right shutters 1. The Empress Kunigunde, 26.1 × 7.6 cm (top), 7.8 cm (bottom) 2. The Emperor Heinrich II and Basel Cathedral, 30.6 (left), 37.9 (right) × 22.2 cm} Organ shutters protected the organ from dust and dirt. Here, the central panels and side panels would have been connected by a hinge. These left-side shutters depict the founders of Basel Cathedral, Heinrich II, Holy Roman Emperor, and his wife St Kunigunde (Müller, 346–47). Holbein deploys perspective and illusion, particularly noticeable in the emperor's elbow, to offset the angles and height of the shutters' positions.
context_page_description: Basel Minster is a religious building in the Swiss city of Basel, originally a Catholic cathedral and today a Reformed Protestant church.
  The original cathedral was built between 1019 and 1500 in Romanesque and Gothic styles. The late Romanesque building, destroyed by the 1356 Basel earthquake, was rebuilt by Johannes Gmünd, who was at the same time employed for building the Freiburg Münster. Ulrich von Ensingen, architect of the towers at the Ulm Minster and the Strasbourg Cathedral, extended the building from 1421. Hans von Nußdorf completed the southern tower in 1500.
  One of the main landmarks and tourist attractions of Basel, it adds definition to the cityscape with its red sandstone architecture and coloured roof tiles, its two slim towers and the cross-shaped intersection of the main roof. The Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance lists the Münster as a heritage site of national significance.
context_section_description: Built on the old foundations of the Haito Minster some time after the turn of the first millennium a new building in the early Romanesque style of the Ottonian period was built by order of Bishop Adalberto II (approx. 999 - 1025). Sometimes called “Adalberto Cathedral”, the three-nave cathedral is actually named after its patron Emperor Henry II, in German “Heinrich”. The cathedral is dedicated to Henry II and his wife Kunigunde. The prince-bishop governed the city as representative of the Emperor who gained possession of Basel in 1006.
  Excavations from 1973-1974 prove that the crypt of this building, consecrated in 1019, had not been expanded. At the end of the 11th century a tower made of light-colored limestone and molasse was erected on the western side of the building. This historic structure remains forming the bottom part of the north tower (Georgsturm) today. Heinrich Minster did not possess a tower on the south side.
caption: Design for organ shutters for Basel Minster by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1525–26.  Holbein includes a view of the cathedral between its founders Kunigunde and Henry II.[2]
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