The Inscriptions of the City and District of Linz

Among a number of "turns" historical sciences have been going through during a couple of years, one of the most influencing and lastingly respected seems to be the "spatial turn". Combined with methodological and interpretative paradigms such as the research on memory and recent studies in symbolic communication the category of space proves to be a valuable instrument of analysis for epigraphic source material. The project is to provide the first systematic collection of the medieval and early modern epigraphic source material of the city and disctrict of Linz in Upper Austria up to 1650, considering not only the objects preserved in their original form but also those epigraphic monuments whose evidence is to be found in manuscript epigraphic collections or other media. An accurate printed edition of this source base according to the strict guidelines of the "Die Deutschen Inschriften" series shall be prepared, referring in the commentary to the outlines of interpretation mentioned above. Furthermore, the late Gothic funeral monuments originating form large sculptors` workshops of the 15th and 16th shall be studied under the aspects of history of art and epigraphic paleography as preparation for a future catalogue-like publication.

On the contrary to the classic (diplomatic and manuscript) sources investigated by historians, which are preserved in archives and manuscript collections, historic inscriptions retain up to our days an immediate connection to the very place in public space they were initially devised for. They are transporting (e.g. as funerary inscriptions) the textual results of the self-fashioning of individuals and social groups and open up a dialogue with their readers. A regionally selected stock of medieval and early modern inscriptions from Upper Austria should offer evidence for the existence of specific relations between the places the inscribed stones were displayed in and the intention of the message their commissioners wanted to express. An analysis of these epigraphic lieux de mémoire suggested that different types of texts (as f. i. epitaphs for successful members of the burghers elites in Enns or of the local nobles of the region or the epigraphic sources of the house tradition of the monasteries of St. Florian and Wilhering) claimed different shares of public (urban) space but sometimes led to struggles for more prominent and better visible places. On the other hand a group of versified Latin texts carried out in high-quality humanistic Renaissance capitals around 1500 could be attributed to diverging social groups of commissioners, who were equally interested in the then modern and innovative humanistic culture represented by the German arch-humanist Conrad Celtis who was at that time a follower of King Maximilians court residing in Linz. The source basis gathered within the project according to the outlines of the edition series Die Deutschen Inschriften provides material for further detailed studies in all disciplines of history and history of art.