Opened in 1894, the Basel Historical Museum is one of the largest and most important museums of its kind in Switzerland. The museum is divided into four sections (buildings), three of which are within the city of Basel. These are Barfüsserkirche, Haus zum Kirschgarten and the Musikmuseum. The fourth section, the Coach and Carriage Museum lies slightly outside Basel, in the neighbouring town of Münchenstein.
The main part of the museum is located in the Barfüsserkirche in the centre of Basel. The museum houses the Upper Rhine’s most comprehensive cultural history collection and the display area covers 6,200 square meters. The exhibition presents objects documenting handicraft traditions and everyday culture from ages past. Its focus is on the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance up to the Baroque period.
Leading highlights include: the Basel Cathedral treasure, the Basel and Strasbourg tapestries, the fragments of Basel’s dance of death, altars and ecclesiastical graphic works, the estate of Erasmus of Rotterdam, the coin cabinet and glass painting. The museum also preserves old cabinets of curiosities which have been bequeathed, as Amerbach cabinet and Faesch cabinet, which works great collectors Basel sixteenth and seventeenth century.
References:Château de Niort is a medieval castle in the French town of Niort. It consists of two square towers, linked by a 15th-century building and dominates the Sèvre Niortaise valley.
The two donjons are the only remaining part of the castle. The castle was started by Henry II Plantagenet in the 12th century and completed by Richard the Lionheart. It was defended by a rectangular curtain wall and was damaged during the Wars of Religion. In the 18th century, the castle served as a prison.
The present keeps were the central point of a massive fortress. The southern keep is 28m tall, reinforced with turrets. The northern tower is slightly shorter at 23m. Both are flanked with circular turrets at the corners as well as semicircular buttresses. Each of the towers has a spiral staircase serving the upper floors. The Romanesque architecture is of a high quality with the dressed stones closely jointed.