View of area of Podgórna Street with St. John's Church

From the second half of the 19th century, drawings of Szczecin often presented an idealised image of the city, but the people depicted on the layout were shown at natural, everyday activities, like hanging laundry or unloading goods from ships. A lithograph by Theodor Alexander Weber (1838-1907) from around 1880, depicting Szczecin near Rosengarten (Podgórna Street) and St. John the Evangelist Church (St. Johannis Kirche), had the form of such a drawing. Born in Leipzig, the artist studied in Berlin, in the atelier of the seascape painter Wilhelm Krause (1803-1864), and then in Paris, where he settled permanently after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. In his works, he emphasised solid artistry. His drawings were printed in Stuttgart xylographic workshop, where illustrations for geography publications were made. Weber's work shows the area around the former Rosengarten in the southern part of the old town, where until the 19th century there were extensive gardens and the street was divided into an upper part, called the Rose Garden – Rosengarten, and a lower part called the Dog Hill - Roddenberg. In former times, the Rosengarten area did not have a good reputation as it was inhabited by women of light morals who were only allowed to live on the city outskirts. According to some researchers, the street's name was a result of the humour of the medieval people of Szczecin, who called this part of the street the Rosengarten because of the stinking moat nearby. In 1856, in connection with the ordering of street names, Rosengarten was adopted for the entire street. Weber's lithograph also shows the church of John the Evangelist, whose construction began in 1318. In 1534, the Protestant community took over the Franciscan church, and in the 19th century, it was turned into a food warehouse. The church survived the Second World War and is now the oldest Gothic building in Szczecin.

Małgorzata Peszko