File:Villinger-Böcklin-Kapelle left.jpg

English: The left-hand window of the Villinger-Böcklin Chapel of the Freiburg Minster is a copy made ca. 1910 by Fritz Geiges of an original now located in the Augustinermuseum. An inscribed plate under the picture identifies the donors and the date of the donation (or origin): “Jakob Villinger von Schönenberg Rö[misch] key[serlicher] Maj[estät] Schatzmeister in T[e]utschen Landen und Ursula Adlerin sin ehlich husfrow in dem jor do man zalt nach Christi gepurt 1524” (Jakob Villinger von Schönenberg, Treasurer of His Roman Imperial Majesty, and Ursula Adler, his wedded wife, in the year 1524 counted after the birth of Christ).

Jakob Villinger, one of Freiburg’s most noteworthy and richest individuals in the early 16th century, was Emperor Maximilian’s treasurer as of 1501. In 1504, Maximilian dubbed him a knight, and from this time he called himself Villinger von Schönenberg. His wife, Ursula Adler, was a well-to-do woman with whom he jointly financed the construction and outfitting of the chapel.

The donor couple is depicted on the left-hand window with St. James the Greater, the name patron of Jakob Villinger. A fantastic Renaissance frame of columns, pillars, and arcades frames the scene. On the arches are angels’ heads and putti, which hold part of a rosary with golden and red balls and petals.

St. James the Greater is seated on a throne in the middle of a hilly landscape and holds crowns of eternal life above the heads of the two donors, kneeling at his sides, as a symbol of their successful pilgrimage. The massive and broadly seated saint wears a large pilgrim’s hat decorated with a scallop shell and is clothed in a broad red cape. Visible behind the figures is the pilgrimage cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, which according to legend is the burial place of St. James. In the open narthex of the church we see pilgrims at the table of a money-changer and in front of the church a stand where pilgrims’ symbols, scallop shells etc. are sold. Behind them to the left is a naked man in a bathhouse.

The name of the painter of this window painting is not preserved, but art historians have suggested that the architectural forms point to an Augsburg artist, a proposal bolstered by long-term residency of the donors in Augsburg, which was furthermore the birthplace of Ursula Adler. The window was probably made in the Ropstein workshop in Freiburg.