of its
older portions. The city is divided by the Rhine into Gross Basel (south)
and Klein Basel (north), the former being by far the larger. There are
several bridges over the river, the old wooden bridge having been replaced
in 1905 by one built of stone. The central or main railway station is in
Gross Basel, while the Baden station is in Klein Basel. The most prominent
building in the city is the cathedral or Muenster, built of deep red
sandstone, on a terrace high above the Rhine. It was consecrated in 1019,
but was mainly rebuilt after the disastrous earthquake of 1356 that nearly
ruined the city. The public meetings of the great oecumenical council
(1431-1449) were held in the choir, while the committees sat in the
chapter-house. Erasmus lived in Basel 1521-1529, and on his death there
(1536) was buried in the cathedral, attached to which are cloisters, in
which various celebrated men are buried, _e.g._ Oecolampadius (d. 1531),
Grynaeus (d. 1541), Buxtorf (d. 1732). The 16th-century Rathaus or town
hall has recently been restored. In the museum is a fine collection of
works of art by Holbein (who lived in Basel from [v.03 p.0463] 1528 to
1531), while the historical museum (in the old Franciscan church) contains
many treasures, and among them the fragments of the famous _Dance of
Death_, wrongly attributed to Holbein. The university (founded by Pius II.
in 1460) is the oldest in Switzerland, and of late years has been extended
by the construction of detached buildings for the study of the natural
sciences, _e.g._ the Vesalianum and the Bernoullianum. The university
library is very rich, and contains the original MSS. of the acts of the
great oecumenical council. There are a number of modern monuments in the
city, the most important being that set up to the memory of the Swiss who
fell in the battle of St Jakob (1444), won by the French. Basel is the seat
of the chief missionary society in Switzerland, the training school for
missionaries being at St Chrischona, 6 m. out of the city.

The town was founded in A.D. 374 by the emperor Valentinian, from whose
residence there it takes its name. In the 5th century the bishop of Augusta
Rauricorum (now called Kaiser Augst), 7-1/2 m. to the east, moved his see
thither. Henceforth the history of the city is that of the growing power,
spiritual and temporal, of the bishops, whose secular influence was
gradually supplanted in the 14th century by the advance of the rival power
o