Exhibition highlight in Trier, Germany

He was proclaimed Roman Emperor in York and some even consider him to have been a British king. In order to find out the truth about Constantine the Great, head for Germany’s oldest city Trier where a major exhibition on the first Christian Roman Emperor is taking place from 2 June to 4 November 2007.

During that period, the city’s Rhine State Museum, the Bishopric Cathedral and Diocese Museum and the Simeonstift City Museum will focus on Constantine I and his legacy featuring, for instance, the head of a colossal statue of the emperor, original frescoes depicting his family and scale models of Christian churches he built. Trier as Constantine’s first imperial residence and capital of his empire from 307 to 324 AD retains splendid Roman monuments such as the well-preserved second century “Porta Nigra” (Black Gate), his throne room, the amphitheatre and imperial baths.

As one of the thirteen cities of the “Historic Highlights of Germany” where visitors can travel in the footsteps of historic figures who changed the face of Germany, Europe and the world, Trier is also home of the Karl Marx House where the founder of Communism was born in 1818 and lived until 1835.

Another eminent figure of world history, Martin Luther, is closely connected to Erfurt in the Eastern German federal state of Thuringia where the church reformer was ordained priest at St. Mary’s Cathedral. The Augustinian monastery where he was a monk from 1505 to 1511 contains a Martin Luther exhibition. Only a short trip from Erfurt away on Wartburg Castle, Luther translated the New Testament into German.

In Lübeck, the most Northern member town of the “Historic Highlights of Germany”, it’s all about literary giants and Nobel Prize winners Günter Grass and Thomas Mann. The 18th century gabled Buddenbrook House of Mann’s grandparents is the setting for “Buddenbrooks”, his famous novel about the decline of a wealthy merchant family. Photographs and exhibitions at six biographical stations give an intimate view of the Mann family and the patrician lifestyle. Lübeck’s Günter Grass House, opened in 2002, explores the “Tin Drum” writer’s talent in literature, sculpture, graphics and music including exhibits portraying his writing process and his sculptures in a courtyard garden.

More “Historic Highlights of Germany” are, for instance, Augsburg, birthplace of playwright Bertolt Brecht, Regensburg with the Kepler Memorial House and Freiburg with the “House of the Whale” where humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam lived during the Protestant Reformation.

The “Historic Highlights of Germany” consist of the cities of Augsburg, Erfurt, Freiberg, Heidelberg, Koblenz, Lübeck, Münster, Potsdam, Regensburg, Rostock, Trier, Wiesbaden and Würzburg.

For more information, visit Historicgermany.com.