The New International Encyclopædia/Göttingen

GÖTTINGEN, gẽ'tĭng-en. An old town of the Prussian Province of Hanover, situated on the Leine, 36 miles north by rail east of Cassel (Map: Prussia, C 3). With the exception of the fourteenth-century Rathaus, containing frescoes by Schaper, the modern theatre, and the famous Göttingen University (q.v.), the town has no buildings worthy of mention. Of its many educational institutions, the most noteworthy, aside from the university, are the gymnasium, founded at the end of the sixteenth century, the pedagogical seminary, and the municipal museum of antiquities. The Aula has a picture collection with some good examples of the early Dutch and German schools. Göttingen is provided with a good water-supply. The chief manufactures are cloth, leather, scientific instruments, tobacco, and famous Bologna sausages. The Blumenbach collection of skulls is in Göttingen. Population, in 1890, 23,689; in 1900, 30,234, chiefly Protestants.

The town is first mentioned in the tenth century. It was given municipal rights by Otho IV. at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and in 1261 became the residence of the Princes of Brunswick-Lüneburg. It was a prominent member of the Hanseatic League, and famous for its cloth goods. Its prosperity was interrupted by the Thirty Years' War, when it fell twice into the hands of the Swedes. The establishment of the university gave Göttingen new importance, and at the close of the eighteenth century it was a flourishing literary centre.