Juleum Helmstedt

Juleum – Main building of the former Brunswick University in Helmstedt.

The future is made of ideas. That is why think tanks are always workshops for the future. An important think tank was opened in Helmstedt in 1576: the Academia Julia. Duke Julius of Brunswick and Lüneburg founded this first Guelph state university. The Protestant reform university existed until 1810 and radiated far beyond Helmstedt, Brunswick and the German-speaking world. It attracted professors and students from all over Europe to Helmstedt. Among them was the world-famous scholar Giordano Bruno from Italy.

The university buildings with the magnificently decorated Aula from the 16th century are grouped around the Collegienhof. With the permanent exhibition on the history of the university in the former wine and beer cellar and the holdings of the former university library on the upper floor, they convey a vivid impression of life at this oldest university in Lower Saxony.

The virtual tour around and through the Juleum includes the Collegienhof, the district and university museum, the assembly hall, the library with several thousand books as well as the tower with a bird’s eye view of the former university town with its professorial houses.

In the museum, numerous original objects from the history of the district of Helmstedt as well as the history of the university can be discovered. Among them are a model of the university town of Helmstedt with professors’ houses, the cookbook of a professor’s daughter, a lunar atlas from 1791, a 300-year-old narwhal’s tooth, a pair of bull’s-eye glasses and 17th-century tableware from the university cafeteria.

Illustrations:

Exterior view of the Juleum (Photo: Sterly)

Coat of arms of Duke Carl I in the library hall (Photo: Sterly)

Front-ring spectacles from around 1700 (photo: Sterly)