Secular Fribourg

The central band of the window — analogous to the “Religioni patrum fideles” band in “Ecclesiastical Fribourg” — carries a programmatic secular motto whose function brackets the neighbouring window. The inscription, in Roman majuscule typography spread across three lancets, formulates the foundation of the city’s civic identity. Without direct access to the microstructure of the text at gigapixel resolution, a secure reading of the lettering has hitherto required archival analysis; the planned FWNDK digitisation will allow the wording of the motto to be verified definitively against the preparatory cartoons of the Kirsch & Fleckner workshop preserved at the Vitrocentre Romont.

Like “Ecclesiastical Fribourg”, the secular window stands stylistically at the boundary of two epochs. From Young Poland Art Nouveau Mehoffer retains: the organic line of the ornament (clouds, draperies, ribbons), mosaic-like fields of colour, decorative tracery canopies. From the early Art Deco of the 1930s he adopts: axial symmetry, an “architectural” rhythm of registers, the geometricisation of heraldry, elegant classicising lettering, a monumental order of composition. Two styles, two epochs, one artist aged 64 — Mehoffer’s biographical synthesis in full maturity.

The most elaborate formal element of the window is its heraldic system: the arms of the canton of Fribourg (a black bend on white, with an inverted band), of the Swiss Confederation (a white cross on red), of the neighbouring cantons (Bern, Vaud, Soleure, Neuchâtel, Valais), and the arms of the knightly and civic families of Fribourg (the Zähringen as founders, the Habsburgs as medieval protectors). In the available gigapixel frames the bear (Bern) and the white cross (Confederation) have so far been unambiguously confirmed; the remaining shields remain unconfirmed and require a tighter framing of the predella. Heraldry in “Secular Fribourg” serves as a chronicle narrative running parallel to the figural narrative: a reader versed in the language of the shields can read from the heraldry the very same history as from the figures.

The window’s palette is built from dominant tones of deep ultramarine (#0F2F8F), carmine (#C1121F) and ruby (#B0002A) — the Fribourg colours of the cantonal arms extended across the whole composition; these are complemented by a lavish use of gold (silver stain) in the heraldry, crowns, mottoes and attributes of power; with accents of green (#2E8B57) in the natural landscape and violet (#4B2E83) in the ceremonial details. The vertical rhythm of the sapphires cools the composition; the horizontal bands of carmine and gold build a solemn heraldic pulse.

The second key historical scene is the Battle of Murten (Morat) of 22 June 1476, in which the united Swiss Confederation — with the participation of the Fribourg militia — won a decisive victory over the Burgundian Charles the Bold (1433–1477). The same battle is the subject of the “Our Lady of Victory” window (1897/1898) in the side chapel of the south nave; in “Secular Fribourg” the Murten motif returns after forty years as a continuing element of the cantonal narrative. In the final phase of the Fribourg cycle Mehoffer makes a gesture of programmatic recapitulation: themes taken up in the early phase return in a final recomposition.

The third key scene is the accession of Fribourg to the Swiss Confederation (historically in 1481, together with Soleure, under the agreement of the Tagsatzung of Stans — see the “Nicholas of Flüe” window, whose mediation prevented the disintegration of the Confederation at that same Tagsatzung). The tablet in the central lancet (R05), however, declares A·D·1512 / INIUNCTUM / NOBIS (“In the Year of the Lord 1512, entrusted to us”); the date visible in the glass is 1512, not 1481. The figure holds a scroll/document, and in the background appears the white cross of the Confederation. In the right-hand lancet at the level of R05 there additionally appears a figure with the papal tiara and papal arms (keys and tiara), linked to the motto “Libertatis Ecclesiae” and the date 1512 (the context of the conferral of the title of Defenders of the Church) — a sacral-papal element within the “secular” window. This event makes Fribourg an official member of the Confederation, the eighth in order; its programmatic commemoration in the cathedral’s chancel window is an identity-defining gesture of fundamental significance.

In the middle register of the window (R06) — echoing the enthroned St Nicholas in “Ecclesiastical Fribourg” — Mehoffer places an allegorical figure of Fribourg (Civitas Friburgensis / Helvetia Friburgensis), with a mural crown (corona muralis, the attribute of the city), in red-and-gold robes, among soldiers; the uppermost part of the window, meanwhile, is occupied by a horseman with a banner beneath a crown. This personification, in antique-style dress with the attributes of power (the civic crown, the sword of justice or a sceptre), functions as the secular counterpart of St Nicholas: where the cathedral’s patron is the “keystone” of ecclesiastical history, the personification of the city is the “keystone” of secular history.

The predella zone develops a systematic heraldic display. At the centre is placed the shield of arms of the canton of Fribourg — a black bend on a white field, with a black-and-white band in reversal. Arranged around it are the shields: of the Swiss Confederation (a white cross on red — the federal arms established in the fifteenth century and confirmed in 1848); of the adjoining cantons (Bern: a black bear; Vaud: a green-and-white division; Soleure: a red-and-white division; Valais: a red-and-white bar; Neuchâtel: a gold chevron on red). Together the heraldry completes the composition as a programmatic “signature of the federal community”, in which Fribourg is one of the partners. In the central predella there additionally appears a figure in a diadem with the word HISTORIA and a wheel (a spinning wheel / wheel of fortune) — an allegory of History.

The medallion at the foot of the lower zone of the window bears the date 1933, recording the execution of the painted composition. According to the FWNDK chronological register, “Secular Fribourg” figures as the thirteenth, final window of the cycle (FWNDK-WIT-FRI-013, 1932/1936), installed as part of the final chancel campaign that also included “Ecclesiastical Fribourg”.

The foundation scene of 1157 — Bertold IV of Zähringen — inscribes Fribourg into the European tradition of medieval towns organised according to civic law. Mehoffer programmatically does not depict here a “primitive settlement”, but an act of civilisation: the transfer of town law, the establishment of self-government, the integration of the town into the European network. This iconographic gesture conveys that Fribourg is not a peripheral canton but an integral element of Western European urban civilisation — a message that in 1933 (the year of the window’s installation) carries a particularly sharp significance amid the rising tension over European identity.

The reintroduction of the Battle of Murten into the cycle’s programme — after the earlier “Our Lady of Victory” window of 1897/1898 — takes on a new dimension in 1933. In the context of the mounting Fascist-National-Socialist threat (Hitler in power from January 1933, further annexations 1934–1938), the battle for Swiss unity against the Burgundian menace of 1476 acquires fresh meaning. Here Mehoffer performs a gesture of programmatic updating — medieval history functions as a mirror of the present.

So elaborate a heraldic display — six or more cantonal shields in the final predella zone — functions in 1933 as a programmatic “shield of federal identity”. Mehoffer makes a communal gesture: Fribourg is shown not as a separate canton but as a canton inscribed into the network of the Confederation, in solidarity with its Protestant and Catholic neighbours (religious differences lose their significance here before the federal community). In 1933 this is a programmatic pacifist-federalist gesture, parallel to the message of the “Nicholas of Flüe” window of 1919.

The introduction into the cathedral chancel of a strictly historical-secular programme — with figures of dukes, battle scenes, cantonal heraldry, an installation date — is a modernist gesture of cultural significance. Mehoffer shows that modern sacred art need not isolate the sanctuary from secular history; on the contrary — it can bring into it those narratives that constitute the material foundation of the community of believers. This position is close to the programmes of the Catholic Renouveau catholique (Bloy, Péguy, Maritain) and the German Beuroner Kunstschule (Desiderius Lenz, Beuron) — sacred art as a synthesis of all the dimensions of human life.

“Secular Fribourg” is a monument of European rank, one of the most original chancel windows of the twentieth century in Europe. It unites the mastery of the stained-glass craft (mosaic of colour, silver stain, lead as drawing) with an iconological programme unprecedented in the sacred art of the age — the secular history of the city-canton inscribed into the liturgical space of the chancel. The programmatic diptych composition with the twin “Ecclesiastical Fribourg” makes of the two windows one of the most outstanding works of monumental historical narrative in European art of the 1930s. The digital gigapixel documentation, carried out by the Foundation for the Virtualisation of National Cultural Heritage in 2025, makes possible for the first time a detailed analysis of the inscription of the central motto, the microstructure of the cantonal heraldry and the commemorative dates — data critical for the study of Catholic art of federal identity in interwar Switzerland.