BASEL, Diocese of. – In Switzerland; comprises the cantons of Aargau, Basel (city and countryside), Bern, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, Solothurn, Thurgau, and Zug. The bishop resides in Solothurn. Immediately subject to the Holy See, it numbers 600,000 Catholics out of a total population of 1,850,000, 446 parishes, 900 secular priests, and 170 regular clergy. The city’s coat of arms consists of a black crozier on a silver field, derived from the ancient coat of arms of the prince-bishopric (a red crozier on a silver field). Patrons: Sts. Ursus and Victor, martyrs of the Theban Legion.
Basel originated from a settlement formed in the territory of the Rauraci around a fortress erected by Valentinian I and designated from 347 as Basilia. The date of the Christianization of the place is unknown, but the first historically attested bishop is Justinian, episcopus Rauricorum (346), who must have had his see in Augusta, situated about 10 km south of present-day Basel. A document from 620 then mentions Ragnarcius episcopus Augustanae et Basiliae (c. 620–650); the title indicates that the episcopal see had already been transferred to Basel. Adalbero II (999–1021) received from Rudolph III of Burgundy the abbey of Moutier-Grandval and its dependencies, which formed the nucleus of the ecclesiastical principality. This principality reached its greatest extent in the 15th century, including not only the lordship of Basel but also the Bernese Jura and parts of Alsace, and lasted until the early 19th century.
The Investiture Controversy had a strong impact on the diocese of Basel: Bishop Burkhard (1072–1107) sided with Henry IV and was excommunicated by the Council of Quedlinburg (1085). During the Great Schism, which ended with the Council of Constance (v.), the bishops sided with Urban VI. The Reformation penetrated the diocese through the preaching of Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1532), who, together with Erasmus of Rotterdam, had been invited by Bishop Christoph von Utenheim (1502–1527) to teach at the university. It gained ground rapidly, so much so that Bishop Philipp von Gundelsheim (1527–33) was forced to retreat to his castle at Porrentruy. The chapter fled to Freiburg im Breisgau, and Catholic worship was prohibited (1538). Many territories of the diocese adhered to the new ideas, and only Bishop Johann Christoph Blarer von Wartensee (1575–1608) succeeded in regaining some of the lost rights and reconverting the Laufen Valley to the Catholic faith.
The principality suffered greatly during the Thirty Years’ War, and at the time of the French Revolution it was established as the Rauracian Republic, which later was annexed to France as the so-called department of Mont-Terrible. At that point, Bishop Joseph Sigismund von Roggenbach (1782–94) left Porrentruy (1792) and took refuge in Biel/Bienne. With the union of the department to the diocese of Strasbourg, effected by the Concordat of 1802, the prince-bishopric of Basel practically ceased to exist. The Congress of Vienna (1815) then assigned the Swiss parts to the cantons of Bern and Basel. The concordat between the Holy See and the cantons of Lucerne, Bern, Solothurn, Zug, Aargau, and Thurgau (1828), and the bull Inter praecipua of 7 May 1828 by Leo XII, united the greater part of the diocese of Constance in Swiss territory to the diocese of Basel, roughly within its present boundaries. Following the Articles of Baden, a new conflict arose between ecclesiastical and temporal authority, which intensified (expulsion of religious from convents and the Kulturkampf) after the First Vatican Council (1870). In 1883, a new agreement put an end to the dispute. The bull Ad universam catholicam Ecclesiam of 7 September 1888 erected the Ticino as an autonomous diocese and united it to Basel, whose bishop henceforth assumed the title, still held today, of Bishop of Basel and Lugano.
Among the cultural institutions, mention should be made of the university founded by Pius II (1459) and reorganized between 1813 and 1818. The most important library is the University Library, rich in 420,000 volumes, 240,000 pamphlets, 2,800 incunabula, and 542 manuscripts.
Emilia Kühn-Steinhausen
Council of Basel. – As had been prescribed by the Council of Pavia–Siena, which closed on 7 March 1444, the new council was to convene at Basel in 1431. It was to be presided over by Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini, who was serving as legate in Germany for the struggle against the Hussites. The council held its first solemn session on 14 December 1431; but Pope Eugenius IV, recently elected, fearing that it might degenerate into rebellion against the Holy See and desiring to promote union with the East from Italy, dissolved it on 18 December. In its second session (15 February 1432), however, the council protested that, deriving its authority directly from Christ, it had the right to bind even the Pope to its decisions and therefore could not be transferred or suspended by anyone. This principle, repeatedly asserted thereafter, formed the basis of its later claims. Meanwhile, it continued its work under the favor of Emperor Sigismund and the general consent of public opinion. To avoid a schism, the Pope, after much hesitation, recognized the legitimacy of the council by a bull on 15 December 1433, granting it authority to eradicate heresies, pacify Christendom, and reform the Church. The council, however, arbitrarily expanding its powers and continuing to proclaim itself directly invested by the Holy Spirit, not only claimed to limit the authority of papal legates but to substitute itself for the Pope in the government of the Church, to restrict the financial resources of the Holy See, to create its own curia for administrative affairs, and to judge weighty matters such as those concerning the return to unity of the Hussites and the Greeks. In reality, the negotiations with the Hussites, which dragged on, produced no positive result, while the Byzantines refused to negotiate with the council.
Meanwhile, the council, dominated by a majority in which bishops played a minor role and led by Cardinal Louis Aleman, resorted to unprecedented violence: it launched a direct offensive against Eugenius IV and on 31 July 1437 dared to summon the Pope and cardinals to appear in Basel within sixty days; on 1 October it went so far as to declare Eugenius IV contumacious.
Meanwhile, with a bull dated 18 September, he denounced the turbulent schemes of his conduct, the inability to bring the negotiations with the Greeks to a conclusion, and therefore transferred the council itself from Basel to Ferrara. The most authoritative figures who, like Cardinal Cesarini, had vainly hoped to keep the council on a path of discipline and decorum, left Basel. While Eugenius IV presided first at Ferrara and soon after at Florence over his council, at Basel an open rebellion broke out by defining “as an article of faith” that the Pope cannot transfer a council (15 March 1438); a few days later the council launched a suspension against Eugenius IV; but only on 25 July 1439 did it dare to vote the solemn deposition of Eugenius IV, and on 5 December elected as the new pope Amadeus IV, Duke of Savoy, still a layman, under the name of Felix V.
He, having been consecrated, was crowned at Basel on 24 July 1440. In this way the schism that had been dormant for twenty-two years was reopened; it however had a very limited and conditional following: France and Germany proclaimed themselves neutral in the dispute, Italy almost entirely sided with Eugenius IV; despite this the council continued at Basel until 16 May 1443, when in its 45th session it decided to move to Lausanne, where Felix V resided, with the intention of opening a new council at Lyon after three years.
Instead at
Basel — Castle Gate at Solothurn (15th century) and bell tower of the church of SS. Orso and Vittorio (18th century).
Lausanne on 24 July 1448 the members of the Basel council still claimed to continue their work; however, when the King of France acted as intermediary, they negotiated with Nicholas V, who had succeeded Eugenius IV; they therefore withdrew the censures imposed against the legitimate popes, and on 7 April 1449, after Felix V had abdicated, they elected Nicholas V as the legitimate pope in their own right.
Thus was closed a council that for the period 1433–37 must be considered ecumenical, but which in reality, instead of being useful to Christendom, had done nothing but rekindle dormant disputes and keep alive those antagonisms that were to reawaken more strongly with the Protestant Reformation.
ART. — The principal artistic moments for the city of Basel are from the beginning of the 11th century, when the Cathedral was rebuilt under Emperor Henry II, and from the years of the Council of Basel (1341–1449), which gathered many artists and fostered the enlargement and embellishment of several Gothic churches. Shortly after, in 1459, Pius II founded the university there.
Few are the monumental remains prior to the Romanesque period; they are essentially, besides the reliefs and Roman inscriptions (in the Historical Museum), the foundations of the *Castrum* of the Roman city; it is supposed that the first cathedral was erected on the site of the Roman temple. Even fewer are the remains of Celtic and Gallic villages, Alemannic tombs, and Frankish monuments. From the 7th–8th centuries are the old cathedral of St Mary, the baptistery of St John, and among others the churches of St Brandan, St Alban (with remains of earlier chapels), St Oswald—saints whose cult was established by Irish missionaries in the 7th century.
In 1019 the present cathedral was consecrated. A large part of it dates from the 12th century; restored and enlarged after the earthquake of 1356, it was completed in 1400 with the addition of its towers, in one of which traces of Henry II’s cathedral can still be seen. Very rich was the treasure that, offered by this emperor to the church he had founded, was dispersed only in 1836. It included the gold antependium now in the Cluny Museum in Paris, a cross-shaped reliquary that passed to the museums in Berlin, and other goldsmith works divided among Basel, London, Leningrad, and New York. Famous for its sculptures is the Gate of St Gall (c. 1180), in late Romanesque style; figures from the third quarter of the 13th century on the west façade; from 1374 is the equestrian statue of St George.
Among those buried in the cathedral are Queen Anna, wife of Rudolph of Habsburg, who died in 1289, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Œcolampadius, and Bernoulli.
Among the other churches still extant, mention should be made of the already mentioned St Alban (rebuilt by the Cluniacs in 1083 and then refashioned in Gothic forms), of which the Romanesque cloister is preserved. Essentially Gothic in their present state are the churches of the Barefoot (Franciscan foundation, c. 1270, now transformed into the Historical Museum), the Carthusians (1400), St Clare (Franciscan foundation of 1200), St Leonard (consecrated in 1118), St Martin (rebuilt at the end of the 1300s), St Peter (id.), the Dominicans (from 1260 onward, with cloister), St Theodore (1400). With the Reformation, in 1523, and with the transfer of the episcopal see in 1525, many frescoes of a religious character began to disappear.
Many streets and squares still retain in part a Gothic-Renaissance appearance; among the secular buildings stand out the *Geltenzunfthaus* (1578), the *Spieshof* (1581), with Italian influences, the town hall (late Gothic). The aspect of the city is partly due to the layout of the ancient walls, of which several fortified gates still exist (Spalente, etc.) adorned with sculptures.
Famous, though preserved only in copies, are two cycles of the Dance of Death: one from the Klingenthal convent (late 1300s), the other from the church of the Dominicans (mid-1400s); some fragments are today in the Historical Museum. The painting of Basel reached Witz (v.) (Basel Altarpiece, c. 1440). In the 1400s, Basel was renowned for the art of painted stained glass, textiles, and the woodcut illustration of printed books; Dürer (v.) left his first engravings in books published by Basel printers. Typical is the painter and draftsman Urs Graf.
Of European importance was the Holbein (v.) (the latter coming to Basel in 1515), evident in the frescoes executed for the legate in 1521 and following (some remnants are preserved in the museum), in the painted shutters of the cathedral organ, in altarpieces, and in portraits. For later periods it will suffice to recall that the city gave birth to M. Merian, the great engraver of European city views (1593), and to the historian and art historian Boecklin (1827). The principal works of art are gathered in the Gallery, the Historical Museum, and the Drawing Cabinet.