Premises of the Perpetual Diet in the Old Ratisbon Town Hall

The Ratisbon town hall is considered one of the oldest mediaeval town halls in southern Germany. Back in 1594, Ratisbon was made the sole gathering place of the imperial diets and for the imperial estates of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. After the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the imperial assembly was also held in Ratisbon. The diet convened for 1663 would become the Perpetual Diet until the end of the Old Empire in 1806. The gathering chamber of the estates and the adjacent rooms of the three colleges have been preserved to this day in the old town hall of Ratisbon.

These rooms and the small museum dedicated to the imperial diet as well as the historical torture chamber are open to the public as part of guided tours and jointly form the "document Reichstag" (document imperial diet). On these locations, diverse visual media of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been preserved within the collections of the Historisches Museum. They are an important part of the history of the Perpetual Diet in Ratisbon. The collection of works of graphical arts and books can be divided into three parts:

1. Bound and named registers of the embassies with single portraits as well as with a substantial number of single portraits of the ambassadors present in Ratisbon.
2. Visual depictions of single festivities in Ratisbon: imperial entries as well as entries of the Prinzipalkommissar (officially appointed representatives) or of the electors; festive openings of the sessions of the diets held between 1648 and 1663, festivities of the Prinzipalkommissar while representing the emperor at the diets.
3. Illustrations of the old town hall with interior views of the colleges and of the imperial hall as well as of the writing office under the directorship of the elector of Mayence. Coloured sketches on the seating order of the ambassadors in the single colleges as well on the seating order for emperors and electors during festivities that were held inside the imperial hall.

This stock of prints is complemented by a series of interior views of the old town hall executed in coating paint technique and datable to the year 1740. The premises have also been preserved by the city of Ratisbon by means of photos. The Bildarchiv (image archive) of the museums comprises photos that show the locations before the first renovation of the town hall in the year 1910. These images are complemented by the building's description which was also published in 1910.

• The objects of the collection "Premises of the Perpetual Diet in the Old Ratisbon Town Hall" available on bavarikon

>> This collection is part of the holdings of the Historisches Museum in Ratisbon.