The fountains of my city: The Mosesbrunnen

Big City is a city of fountains - Brunnen, auf Deutsch. They line the main street through the Old Town and sit in important squares and in front of important buildings. These fountains scattered around the city are one of the highlights of the Old Town and the oldest among them date back to the mid-1500s. The statue of the Mosesbrunnen that stands on the Münsterplatz - the Cathedral square - dates to 1791. On a clear and sunny day the sunlight glints off the gilding and Moses' blue robes echo the sky above.



An older figure of Moses dating back to 1544 once decorated this Brunnen, but I haven't yet figured out if the old statue was destroyed, and if so, how; or simply replaced. The figure from 1544 showed Moses with a full beard and horns, which I believe was common in that time period, and the tablet he carried was engraved with the first two commandments in Hebrew. (The current statue holds tablets engraved with roman numerals I through X.) In the 1544 statue Moses was pointing particularly to the second commandment forbidding "graven images" - in the years immediately following the Reformation (which came to Big City in 1528 with a wave of iconoclasm that stripped the previously Catholic Münster of statues and frescos alike) this would have held especially weighty meaning.



The Brunnen of the city are a marvel and not simple because a good many of them are 450 years old. The statues that adorn them - Moses, Justice, the Chinderfresser (yes, the child-eater) - are works of art and their bases are intricate as well. Here's a detail from the base of the Mosesbrunnen.



Unless labeled otherwise the Brunnen water is potable; many's the hot day I have cupped my hands under a fountain like this and taken a cooling drink before continuing on my way, down the street to where another Brunnen waits to be admired.