Chm Center Hotel Main Franken

The Bamberg Rider has become one of the popular icons of German medieval art. The figure, horse, and plinth (base) are made of seven pieces of sandstone and represent a considerable technical achievement, although the rider's specific identity is uncertain. The original coloring was purposefully removed in the early 1800's on the orders of the Bavarian King, Ludwig I. Originally, the Bamberg Rider sat on a white-gray horse; the harness was gilded in gold. His robe was basically yellow, and over this his cloak had a alternating orange and dark red pattern enhanced by silver colored tin foil. The hem of the cloak and robe, the crown, belt and stirrup belts were gold leaf. The face was very light skinned, and in the eyes the pupils and borders of the iris were painted black.
Stylistically the figure resembles Philip Augustus at Reims and other proposed identifications include Henry II or another German ruler, Constantine, the first Christian emperor, and King Stephen of Hungary (997-1038), who was married to Henrich II's sister Gisela. In addition to the dynastic connections, the original coloring of the statue, which gave a dark brown or black color to the rider's hair, suggests it might be King Stephan as well.King Stephan is also represented standing larger than life next to the statues of Heinrich and Kunigunde (Kunegunde), at the left side of the entrance to the cathedral, the Adamspforte. King Stephan later became Saint Stephan in 1083, and most of the identifications of the Bamberg Rider suggest the concepts of saintly ruler, church foundation, an association of secular and religious power, so important in the imagery at Bamberg Cathedral. There are significant parallels between the Bamberg Rider and a slightly later Magdeburg Rider. But unlike the Magdeburg Rider, the Bamberg Rider is not freestanding and may have always had an interior placement.
The Bamberg Rider is presently positioned on the north pier in the entrance to the east choir. He sits firmly on his horse looking away from the wall with the reins in one hand and the strings of his mantle and the other and seems to embody the knightly virtues so important in the medieval domestication of those who fight.
Bamberg Cathedral continued to receive sculptural embellishments during the later Middle Ages. Wooden sculpted choir stalls dating from around 1380 were originally present in both the east and the west choirs of the cathedral. A frieze of Henry II and Kunigunde (Kunegunde) appear in the decorative program of the choir stalls along with saints, profits, and a collection of hybrid creatures. Tillman Riemannschneider sculpted the tomb of Henry II and Kunigunde (Kunegunde) between 1499 and 1513. Originally located in the east end of the nave, it consists of effigies of the emperor and sat on a tomb chest decorated with narrative panels of their lives, drawn mostly from the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Vorragine. A virgin altarpiece of 1523 by Veit Stoss, originally made for a Carmelite convent in Nuremberg, was subsequently transferred to Bamberg by Stoss' son during the reformation.
Most of the interior walls are bare today, because Ludwig I stripped off the medieval paintwork in the 19th century.