Stadtansicht von Matthäus Merian / City View by Matthäus Merian

City View by Matthäus Merian, Matthäus Merian created this view of Heidelberg in 1620. It shows the electoral Residenzstadt (Residential Town) in the early years of the Thirty Years' War, before it was conquered by Tilly and long before its destruction in 1689 and 1693., The reconstruction in the early 18th century changed the cityscape in one essential detail: Gothic and Renaissance houses were replaced by new Baroque-style buildings. The copperplate engraving clearly shows that the buildings of the medieval town predominantly had their gables facing the street, while the later Baroque houses were usually turned with their eaves in that direction. This is still the case today. It is easy to see that the fragmented layouts of the individual quarters and parcels from the Gothic period were widely preserved during Baroque reconstruction., Important landmarks, then as now, are the Schloss (Castle), the Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit) and the Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church) (the Jesuitenkirche [Jesuit Church] did not yet exist in 1620), the Alte Brücke (Old Bridge), once covered with wood, and finally the 135-meter-long front of the former Zeughaus (Armory) along The Neckar River. Where the Neckar River reached all the way to the Zeughaus over 400 years ago, the busy Bundesstraße (Federal Road) 37 now separates the city from the river.