erstensaal, 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
(Staendehaus), 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 Bluecher 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
pr