The 'Tell Monument' (German : Telldenkmal) is a memorial to William Tell in the market place of Altdorf, Canton of Uri, Switzerland.
The bronze statue by sculptor Richard Kissling was inaugurated on August 28, 1895, at the foot of an old tower. It shows the Swiss national hero with his crossbow and accompanied by his son. At the base is the traditional date of Rütlischwur of 1307.
Wilhelm Tell is credited with having played a central role for the foundation of Switzerland. After Tell shot the Austria reeve Albrecht Gessler, a Swiss uprising against the Austrian rule began.
When Tell refused to bow before a hat on a pole Gessler had erected in Altdorf, Tell was forced to either shoot an apple of his sons head or face death. [1] Tell then shot an apple from his sons head with his crossbow. [1] Acknowledging the feat Tell just achieved, Gessler questioned why Tell had prepared a second to which Tell responded that in case he shot his own son with the first arrow, the second was for Gessler, and the second arrow would surely not have missed. [2] Then Gessler ordered Tell to be detained despite having achieved the requested. [1] But after Tell managed to escape from a rowing boat on Lake Lucerne on the way to prison and shot Gessler on his way to his castle with his crossbow three cantons joined to swear loyalty to one another. [1] The factuality of this legend can not be corroborated by historians. [3] Tell was the inspiration for Friedrich Schiller's play William Tell in 1803. [3]
Due to the legend, for Wilhelm Tell on several occasions and in different locations a monument was thought for. A Tell chapel was built in 1636 at the place where Tell jumped off the rowing boat from Abrecht Gessler near Sisikon. A prominent one was erected on the Lindensquare in Zurich in 1780. [4] This statue showed father and son together. [4] But the one in Zurich was destroyed a few years later in 1800. [4] In 1856 for Wilhelm Tell a statue was erected at the shores of Lake Lugano in Lugano in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. [5] It was sculptured by Vincenzo Vela on request by Giacomo Ciani, an Italian immigrant to Switzerland, owner of a Hotel at the shores of Lake Lugano who would become a Member of Parliament. [5] The one in Lugano shows Tell alone and with two arrows in the right hand raised above the head. [5] In 1860, the first Tell memorial was erected in Altdorf. It was created by Hans Conrad Siegried and presented by Zurich, where it adorned the triumph arch of the federal target shooting competition of Zurich in 1859. [6] But this was created out of gypcrust and not of a durable material. The statue had to be repaired and became a target for caricaturists, who questioned the endurance of the national hero. [6] Therefore, the local government demanded a better solution and a definite memorial. With the inauguration of the present Tell, the gypscrust Tell was destroyed. [2]
In 1866 they asked from the Urner sculptor Heinrich Max Imhof some suggestions. [6] But Imhofs models were deemed as too Greek and not masculine enough. [6] The several Tell models exhibited at the Swiss Expo 1883 also couldn't satisfy. [7] Another unsuccessful attempt to bring a Tell statue to Altdorf was made by a French merchant whose plans were eventually realized in 1901 in Lausanne. [7] In 1887 the Federal Council authorized the financial support of eventual monuments of national character and in 1890 the Federal Art Commission gave its approval to a Tell Memorial in Altdorf. [8]
A competition on who would become the sculpture was organized in March 1891. [9] The ideas of the commission of Uri were detailed, the tender called for a Swiss representative monument for "all kinds of folks". [9] It should be a static monument and not represent Tell in action. [9] It should not show Tell shooting the apple, nor threatening or killing Gessler nor jumping off Gesslers boat. [9] Such scenes could be arranged in form of reliefs around the base of the sculpture. [9] The statue should show Tell in the moment when he refuses to bow before Gesslers hat and in the peasant's clothes worn at the time. [9] By April 1892, thirty competitors submitted their models anonymously out of which the Urner Commission elected four. [9] Eventually, Richard Kisslings model was lauded the most. [9]
In June 1892 the Federal Council decided to support the work with 125'000 Swiss Francs. [10] It would pay for the renovation of the tower in front of which the statue was to be located and the monument itself including a pedestal and three bronze reliefs. [10] A life insurance for Kissling in case he would die before the erection of the sculpture was also agreed on, for which Kissling had to pay half of the 30'000. [10]
To the inauguration on the 27–28 August 1895, the important Swiss societies and notables sent a delegation. [11] The Federal Council and the Supreme Court was represented by three members. [11] The executive council of all Swiss cantons sent at least two members. [11] All delegates stayed overnight in Altdorf and on the 28 August the monument was unveiled. Following the Song of Rütli and the Swiss National anthem was sung. [11]
Behind the statue is a bronze plate with the following inscription: [12]
Erzæhlen Wird Man Von Dem Schützen Tell
So Lang Die Berge Steh'n Auf Ihrem Grunde.
This translates to: It will be talked about (in the sense of "stories will be told about") the marksman Tell as long as the mountains stand on their base.
The canton of Uri is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and a founding member of the Swiss Confederation. It is located in Central Switzerland. The canton's territory covers the valley of the Reuss between the St. Gotthard Pass and Lake Lucerne.
Altdorf is a municipality in Switzerland. It is the capital of the Swiss canton of Uri and retains historic town privileges. It is the place where, according to the legend, William Tell shot the apple from his son's head.
William Tell is a folk hero of Switzerland. According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow who assassinated Albrecht Gessler, a tyrannical reeve of the Austrian dukes of the House of Habsburg positioned in Altdorf, in the canton of Uri. Tell's defiance and tyrannicide encouraged the population to open rebellion and a pact against the foreign rulers with neighbouring Schwyz and Unterwalden, marking the foundation of the Swiss Confederacy. Tell was considered the father of the Swiss Confederacy.
The Old Swiss Confederacy began as a late medieval alliance between the communities of the valleys in the Central Alps, at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire, to facilitate the management of common interests such as free trade and to ensure the peace along the important trade routes through the mountains. The Hohenstaufen emperors had granted these valleys reichsfrei status in the early 13th century. As reichsfrei regions, the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden were under the direct authority of the emperor without any intermediate liege lords and thus were largely autonomous.
Albrecht Gessler, also known as Hermann, was a legendary 14th-century Habsburg bailiff at Altdorf, whose brutal rule led to the William Tell rebellion and the eventual independence of the Old Swiss Confederacy.
William Tell is a drama written by Friedrich Schiller in 1804. The story focuses on the legendary Swiss marksman William Tell as part of the greater Swiss struggle for independence from the Habsburg Empire in the early 14th century. Gioachino Rossini's four-act opera Guillaume Tell was written to a French adaptation of Schiller's play.
The Rütli Oath is the legendary oath taken at the foundation of the Old Swiss Confederacy by the representatives of the three founding cantons, Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, It is named after the site of the oath taking, the Rütli, a meadow above Lake Uri near Seelisberg. Recorded in Swiss historiography from the 15th century, the oath is notably featured in the 19th century play William Tell by Friedrich Schiller.
Rütli or Grütli is a mountain meadow on Lake Lucerne, in the Seelisberg municipality of the Swiss canton of Uri. It is the site of the Rütlischwur in traditional Swiss historiography, the oath marking the foundation of the original Swiss Confederacy. As such it is treated as a national monument of Switzerland. Since 1860, the Schweizerische Gemeinnützige Gesellschaft (SGG) has organized a celebration at the site on Swiss National Day, since 1994 recognized as a public holiday. Rütli is only accessible by boat from Lake Lucerne or by foot from Seelisberg.
Richard Kissling was a Swiss sculptor, and medallist.
The Bundeslied or Tellenlied is a patriotic song of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Its original composition dates to the Burgundian Wars period (1470s). The oldest extant manuscript text was written in 1501, the first publication in print dates to 1545. It consists of stanzas of six lines each, with a rhyming scheme of A-A-B-C-C-B. It is one of the oldest existing records of the legend of Swiss national hero William Tell.
A shooting thaler is a silver coin in thaler size minted to commemorate a Schützenfest or free shooting in Switzerland.
Mario Bernasconi was a Swiss-Italian sculptor.
Flüelen railway station is a railway station in the Swiss canton of Uri and municipality of Flüelen. It is located on the Gotthard railway. The station is situated between the parallel Axenstrasse, the main road through Flüelen, and Bahnhofstrasse, with the main station buildings on Bahnhofstrasse.
Altdorf railway station is a railway station in the Swiss canton of Uri and municipality of Altdorf. The station is situated on the Gotthard railway north of its crossing of the Alps, and is the most southerly station before that line splits into the older route via Erstfeld and the original Gotthard Tunnel, and the newer route via the Gotthard Base Tunnel. The station was reconstructed between 2019 and 2021.
Uri is a Swiss Talschaft and canton in the upper Reuss valley.
Lukas Ferdinand Schlöth was a Swiss sculptor in the late Classical style.
The Stauffacherin is a Swiss legendary figure. According to Swiss folklore, she was the wife of Werner Stauffacher, the Landammann of the Canton of Schwyz and a founding father of the Old Swiss Confederacy. She was depicted in Friedrich Schiller's 1804 play William Tell as an advisor to her husband, advocating for Swiss independence from Habsburg rule. The image of the Stauffacherin, often viewed as the feminine counterpart to Wilhelm Tell, has become a symbol for Swiss national pride, democracy, and women's suffrage.
The Winkelried memorial was erected in memory of Arnold von Winkelried, who sacrificed his life in the Battle of Sempach on the 9 July 1386. According to the Swiss historiography, the Swiss wouldn't be able to break through the firmly positioned order of Habsburg pikemen. At a moment, Winkelried decided to throw himself into the pikes and therefore open a passage through the Austrian defensive front, which made way for an attack of the Swiss confederacy which then led to a Swiss victory in the Battle of Sempach.
The Strassburger memorial is a monument in Basel established in memory of the help the civil population of Strassburg received from Switzerland during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870–1871. It was modeled by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and is located in a park across from the Basel railway station.
Heinrich Max Imhof was a Swiss sculptor, in the Classical style. Max may be short for either "Maximilian" or "Maximus".
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