Konstanz is a small but hopping city that sits on the line between Germany and Switzerland. As such, half of the city is in Germany, and the other half in Switzerland. I am from Stockach, a small town about half an hour away from Konstanz in Germany. My dad is an American, and my mother is from Germany. While we now live in the US, I always love going to spend the day in Konstanz.
The most striking image associated with Konstanz is that of Imperia. At 9 meters high, she stands regally at the front of the harbor. She was designed by the artist Peter Lenk to commemorate the council of Constance (aka: Konstanz). Standing regally and embodying feminine power, she holds two figures in each hand: in one is a small, shriveled, naked man wearing a crown (representing secular power) and in the other is an equally unattractive male figure wearing a papal mitre (representing ecclesiastical power). She stands between them, all powerful and objective. Unsurprisingly, sacred and secular groups across Konstanz caused quite an uproar upon her unveiling, but she quickly became the icon for the city, and therefore dominated (quite in character) over them as well.
Oh, how marvelous: you are not the only person with a place in Germany (or partly in Germany!) in their blog this week; there is a trio: you with Konstanz plus Stuttgart and Landsthul (those are links to their posts). And that Imperia statue is AMAZING; I am going to have to include that in the announcements. In the Indian epic tradition, there are sometimes female guardians of the city like that; in the Ramayana, for example, you will see that the monkey-god Hanuman has to defeat Lankini, a supernatural being who is the guardian of Lanka: more about Lankini :-)
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