The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Trade Around Europe 1300-1600 by Blockmans Wim Krom M. M. Wubs-Mrozewicz Justyna & Mikhail Krom & Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz

Author:Blockmans, Wim,Krom, M. M.,Wubs-Mrozewicz, Justyna & Mikhail Krom & Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2017-01-24T16:00:00+00:00

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15

DANZIG (GDAŃSK)

Seeking stability and autonomy

Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz

In 1608, the painter Isaac van den Blocke, a Danziger with Netherlandish roots, completed a challenging assignment. The Danzig municipal council had commissioned a painting that was to be an all-out portrayal of its power, autonomy and connections. The extensive checklist for the painter included: an impressive panorama of the city with the hand of God holding firmly on to the municipal hall; the main festive building of the city (the Artushof), which was the gathering spot both for denizens and foreigners zealously engaged in business; the Vistula river as the main artery of the grain trade and the connection with the Polish capital in Cracow; and a central view onto the sea that conveyed the notion of appealing distance. The artist used a symbolic, mannerist depiction to meet all the demands, and joined the elements with a classicist triumphant arch supporting the successful city, and the arch of a rainbow. The latter was a reference to God and the ultimate justice of the Last Judgment when all good deeds (of the municipal council) were recognized, but in this painting it also explicitly told the onlookers that ‘We are all connected by the celestial arch’ (Coelesti iungimur arcu). The painting, and cover image of this volume, came to be known as the Apotheosis of Danzig, or the Allegory of Danzig Trade. It still adorns the ceiling of the municipal council chamber in the huge medieval city hall in modern-day Gdańsk.1

This self-representation of the Danzig municipal council, commissioned at the very height of the city’s prosperity as one of the main European centres of exchange of western and eastern goods (Figure 15.1), touches upon all the topics that are central in this volume. The painting shows that it was one of the many important cities located at the mouth of a river and at the seaside, with a vast hinterland and multiple connections by waterways and land routes, attracting specialized ships and entrepreneurs from various corners of Europe, and that it had developed institutions that had made their mark on the townscape. In addition to universality and connectedness, the painting displays some local details, like the gesture of a Polish nobleman shaking hands with a Danzig trader after a concluded business deal or the competing high towers of the city hall and St Mary’s. Above all, the perpetually renewed autonomy of the city, indicated by the architectural style of the arc de triomphe, is the centrepiece of this idea of Danzig.

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