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Strasbourg - Floating City

Neil MacGregor visits Strasbourg, now in France but also a key city in German history, culture and precision engineering, as revealed by model of the astonishing cathedral clock.

Neil MacGregor visits Strasbourg, now in France, but also a city with a key place in German history, culture and precision engineering, as revealed by a model of the cathedral clock, now in the British Museum.

When the writer Goethe stood in front of Strasbourg's Cathedral, he discovered two things: the transporting, transforming force of Gothic architecture and one aspect of what it meant to him to be German.

Producer Paul Kobrak.

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15 minutes

Last on

Fri 3 Oct 2014 00:30
BBC Radio 4

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Broadside print

Broadside print
This broadside print of around 1678, housed in the British Museum, shows how the Germans viewed the French occupation of territory which had always been part of the Holy Roman Empire.

An angry eagle, carrying the Imperial orb, surrounded by smaller allies and brandishing a sword, swoops down to attack and repel the French cock which is trampling a map of the Empire, its shadow blotting out Strassburg.

Image © Trustees of the British Museum.

Broadcasts

  • Thu 2 Oct 2014 09:45
    BBC Radio 4 FM
  • Thu 2 Oct 2014 19:45
    BBC Radio 4
  • Fri 3 Oct 2014 00:30
    BBC Radio 4

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