Townhouse zum Grossen Käfig
Location, Object
City of Schaffhausen, Canton of Schaffhausen, Old town, Vorstadt 43, Haus zum Grossen Käfig. Four-storey late Renaissance townhouse, built 1586, enlarged 1675 for the patrician Rüeger Im Thurn (d. 1701). Fully frescoed facade of 1675 with trompe l’œil architectural decorations framing allegorical scenes, emblems, coats of arms and inscriptions. The frieze above the windows of the 1st floor shows how the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I is led into captivity by the Turkic conqueror Timur (Tamerlan) and is accompanied by a long moralizing German epigram (between the windows of the 2nd floor).
Emblems (5)
Context
The five emblems occupy the spaces above and between the windows of the 2nd and 3rd floors and have epigrams in German (nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5) and Italian (no. 3).
Authorship, Date
Anonymous, dated 1675 (painted cartouche, 1st floor: ‘Zum Großen Kefin. 1675’); renovated c. 1835. Completely repainted in 1906 by August Brandes of Munich, based on the original.
Significance
Political emblems emphasizing the virtues of prudence, fortitude, constancy and faith.
Source
Saavedra 1640 or a later edition, but not the German edition published in Amsterdam in 1655 (nos. 1–3 and 5), and perhaps Camerarius 1595 or later (no. 3). The eponymous scene of the caged sultan Bayezid was known from Matthäus Merian’s engraving in Gottfried 1630: 630.
Literature
KdS SH 1: 329–332; KF 1: 549–550; Graf 1974: 157–158, 166; Frauenfelder 1939 and 1953.
view from south.
frescoed facade.
frescoed facade (detail) with emblems nos. 1–5 (above) and the capture of Bayezid (below), the explanatory epigram (between the windows of the 2nd floor) begins GLORIÆ PER VIOLENTIAM PARTE TANDEM FINIS EST INFAMIA.
A parrot saving its nest from a snake.
CONSILIA CONSILIIS FRUSTRANTUR.
[German verse epigram:] Ein gueth gewüße und ehrlich gesinte ge- / muet. vor Schlangenzungen und trew / loßen hertzen sich wohl behüet.
A lion seeing itself doubled in a broken mirror.
SIEMPRE EL MISMO.
[German verse epigram:] In unglück hab eines Löuwen mueth / In wohlstand heb die demueth. / Schreib alles Zu dem höchsten gueth.
A fox listening to the water of a frozen river; above a hand with eyes reaching out for another hand.
FIDE SED CUL [recte: CUI] VIDE.
[Italian motto below:] DA GLI AMICI MI GUARDI DIO / DA GLI INIMICI MI GUARDERO IO.
An armed soldier with sword, shield and decorated helmet on horseback.
[French Motto left:] CELUIJ QUI CRAINT DIEU TROUVE LA LIBERTÉ ET LA NOBLESSE EN TOUTES CONDITIONS.
[Latin motto right:] ARX MIHI FIRMA DEUS TURRIS FORTISSIMA CHRISTUS.
Soldiers emerging from the earth and killing one another [cf. Ovid, Met. 7.121ff.].
QUI DISCORDIAS SEMINAT BELLA METET.
[German verse epigram:] Auf des jenigen hauß wirdt aller greuwel und fluch felle. / So uneinigkeit und streit in einem hauß thut anstellen.
Italian motto: DA GLI AMICI MI GUARDI DIO / DA GLI INIMICI MI GUARDERO IO.
German verse epigram: Auf des jenigen hauß wirdt aller greuwel und fluch felle. / So uneinigkeit und streit in einem hauß thut anstellen.
Copyright note: Added 2016; revised 2026. All photos taken by the author, July 2016.