Grotesque faces grimace from the fine Renaissance loggia of the Salle du Corps de Garde, a former guardhouse in the cathedral square at Colmar in Alsace, Grand Est, France. In the past, Colmar’s magistrates stood under the loggia’s vaults and arches to publicly announce convictions and the sentences they were handing down to guilty citizens.
Colmar, Alsace, Grand Est, France: grotesque faces grimace at people passing through Place de la Cathédrale from the loggia added in 1577-82 to the Salle du Corps de Garde, a former guardhouse built on the site of a medieval chapel and vaulted ossuary. The superbly sculpted loggia, with fluted columns supporting a vaulted ceiling, has been described as a jewel of the Rhenish Renaissance, new styles of architecture and art that flourished in the 16th century in German and French lands along the Upper Rhine. Its sculptural motifs include palmettes, rosettes, coats of arms, intricate capitals and ornate corbels. The former guardhouse, built in 1575, was designed by master builder Beier Melchior as a town hall. It stands on the site of the Chapelle Saint-Jacques, first mentioned in 1286, which served as an ossuary for bones removed from the cemetery of the nearby collegiate church of Saint Martin. Parts of the vaulted ossuary crypt survive below rooms later used for military and police purposes. Although the chapel’s windows and arched openings were blocked in 1588, their outline is still visible in the rear wall of the guardhouse facing Rue des Marchands. The Salle du Corps de Garde also has a Renaissance main portal flanked by Tuscan columns. For a time, the impressive loggia pictured here was used by Colmar’s magistrates to take their oaths of office and to announce citizens’ convictions and sentences.
Size: 2832px × 4256px
Location: Colmar, Alsace, Grand Est, France.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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