Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition | Page 3

Fürstensaal, in which the diets of Silesia were formerly held, while
beneath is the famous Schweidnitzer Keller, used continuously since
1355 as a beer and wine house. [v.04 p.0499] The university, a
spacious Gothic building facing the Oder, is a striking edifice. It was
built (1728-1736) as a college by the Jesuits, on the site of the former

imperial castle presented to them by the emperor Leopold I., and
contains a magnificent hall (Aula Leopoldina), richly ornamented with
frescoes and capable of holding 1200 persons. Breslau possesses a large
number of other important public buildings: the Stadthaus (civic hall),
the royal palace, the government offices (a handsome pile erected in
1887), the provincial House of Assembly, the municipal archives, the
courts of law, the Silesian museum of arts and crafts and antiquities,
stored in the former assembly hall of the estates (Ständehaus), which
was rebuilt for the purpose, the museum of fine arts, the exchange, the
Stadt and Lobe theatres, the post office and central railway station.
There are also numerous hospitals and schools. Breslau is exceedingly
rich in fine monuments; the most noteworthy being the equestrian
statues of Frederick the Great and Frederick William III., both by Kiss;
the statue of Blücher by Rauch; a marble statue of General Tauentzien
by Langhans and Schadow; a bronze statue of Karl Gottlieb Svarez
(1746-1798), the Prussian jurist, a monument to Schleiermacher, born
here in 1768, and statues of the emperor William I., Bismarck and
Moltke. There are also several handsome fountains. Foremost among
the educational establishments stands the university, founded in 1702
by the emperor Leopold I. as a Jesuit college, and greatly extended by
the incorporation of the university of Frankfort-on-Oder in 1811. Its
library contains 306,000 volumes and 4000 MSS., and has in the
so-called Bibliotheca Habichtiana a valuable collection of oriental
literature. Among its auxiliary establishments are botanical gardens, an
observatory, and anatomical, physiological and kindred institutions.
There are eight classical and four modern schools, two higher girls'
schools, a Roman Catholic normal school, a Jewish theological
seminary, a school of arts and crafts, and numerous literary and
charitable foundations. It is, however, as a commercial and industrial
city that Breslau is most widely known. Its situation, close to the
extensive coal and iron fields of Upper Silesia, in proximity to the
Austrian and Russian frontiers, at the centre of a network of railways
directly communicating both with these countries and with the chief
towns of northern and central Germany, and on a deep waterway
connecting with the Elbe and the Vistula, facilitates its very
considerable transit and export trade in the products of the province and
of the neighbouring countries. These embrace coal, sugar, cereals,

spirits, petroleum and timber. The local industries comprise machinery
and tools, railway and tramway carriages, furniture, cast-iron goods,
gold and silver work, carpets, furs, cloth and cottons, paper, musical
instruments, glass and china. Breslau is the headquarters of the VI.
German army corps and contains a large garrison of troops of all arms.
History.--Breslau (Lat. Vratislavia) is first mentioned by the chronicler
Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg, in A.D. 1000, and was probably
founded some years before this date. Early in the 11th century it was
made the seat of a bishop, and after having formed part of Poland,
became the capital of an independent duchy in 1163. Destroyed by the
Mongols in 1241, it soon recovered its former prosperity and received a
large influx of German colonists. The bishop obtained the title of a
prince of the Empire in 1290.[1] When Henry VI., the last duke of
Breslau, died in 1335, the city came by purchase to John, king of
Bohemia, whose successors retained it until about 1460. The Bohemian
kings bestowed various privileges on Breslau, which soon began to
extend its commerce in all directions, while owing to increasing wealth
the citizens took up a more independent attitude. Disliking the Hussites,
Breslau placed itself under the protection of Pope Pius II. in 1463, and
a few years afterwards came under the rule of the Hungarian king,
Matthias Corvinus. After his death in 1490 it again became subject to
Bohemia, passing with the rest of Silesia to the Habsburgs when in
1526 Ferdinand, afterwards emperor, was chosen king of Bohemia.
Having passed almost undisturbed through the periods of the
Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, Breslau was compelled to own
the authority of Frederick the Great in 1741. It was, however, recovered
by the Austrians in 1757, but was regained by Frederick after his
victory at Leuthen in the same year, and has since belonged to Prussia,
although it was held for a few days by the French in 1807 after the
battle of Jena, and again in 1813 after the battle of Bautzen. The sites of
the fortifications, dismantled by the French in