Cologne - Schnütgen Museum

Cologne is the fourth-largest city in Germany - and one of the oldest. A Germanic tribe, the Ubii, had a settlement here, this was named by the Romans "Oppidum Ubiorum". In 50 AD, the Romans founded "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium", the city then became the provincial capital of "Germania Inferior".

A city with such a history has -of course- many museums. One is the "Museum Schnütgen", devoted to medieval art. In 1906, the collection of Alexander Schnütgen, a theologian and passionate art collector, was donated to the city.

Since 1956, the museum has occupied the Romanesque church of St. Cäcilien (1130-1160), that was once part of a monastery founded in 881. An annex was added in the 1950s, but even now only about 10% of all artefacts can be displayed as of course the collection has expanded since Schnütgen´s donation.

www.museum-schnuetgen.de/Info

In medieval times these kind of bust reliquaries were produced in Cologne by the thousends, after it was believed to have found the relics of Ursula and her companions. Cologne was surrounded by Roman graveyards, so the number of companions grew to 11.000! This started an industry. Reliquaries were produced in manufactures.