Sarnen – History at a scale of 1:1
A walking tour of Obwalden’s principal town. A connection, a story, emerges from the juxtaposition of locations and features. It recounts the history of a dynasty, typical for Central Switzerland, embodied in buildings. Four generations of Imfelds.
Kurt Messmer
Kurt Messmer (1946-2025) was a historian with a focus on history in public space.
Mark out the area
The rural valley floor is dominated by a crossroads, as if marking a point zero from which roads criss-cross the landscape in every direction. This centre has no centre function. Neither the convent and the Capuchin monastery in the middle distance, nor the religious college over towards the lake, on either side of Brünigstrasse, bear any relation to this crossroads. Rivers, spanned by bridges, frame the valley floor. Shortly before, in 1882, the courses of the inflowing Melchaa on the left and the outflowing Sarner Aa on the right were corrected. More ground for building was now available.
Places have voices
The Rathaus, still the seat of the canton’s governing council, cantonal council and state chancellery, draws the eye in the centre of the picture. But if you boast such workmanship, you can afford to step back a little. A first building dates from 1419, and a new building from 1551, as evidenced by the Gothic windows on the base. The current Baroque building was erected on top of that in 1729-1731. Obwalden entrusted this task to Hans Georg Urban, a Lucerne stonemason, who subsequently received numerous commissions for high-profile construction projects in the city of Lucerne and surrounding countryside. And no wonder – in Sarnen he had created a masterpiece as the first example of his prowess: a magnificent frontage, two-sided outdoor flight of steps, the entrance hall set about with columns and lavishly decorated. Surmounted by a roof gable, that and a domed clock tower on the roof ridge accentuate the axial symmetry of the structure and take the building to another level of grandeur. Bearing in mind that a Rathaus originally served many different purposes. Sarnen is a typical example: salt warehouse, butcher’s hall, dancing venue, court of law, bailiff’s residence, prison.
Hintersassen, the lower-status non-citizen residents, have their lodgings behind the Rathaus, as opposed to the Landammänner, the local gentry who built grand houses here. To the left of the Rathaus, the Wirz family, to the right the Frunzes; on the opposite side, not visible in the watercolour, the Heinzlis and the Imfelds. A Landammann was a chief magistrate for a Canton, a position of considerable distinction. The Imfeld saga can now begin.
Almost out of nowhere
Around 1546 Niklaus Imfeld had a house built, the likes of which the denizens of Sarnen had rarely seen. The rooms were decorated with frescoes, and Obwalden and Schwyz provided Standesscheiben, stained glass sheets presenting the coat of arms of a canton of the Old Swiss Confederacy – for Imfeld’s private house. The partisan of France was not lacking in wealth, power and reputation, nor in political rivals. One of these advised Imfeld: “Wann du nun din Huse ufmachest, so schryb denn daran: Zwing Underwalden.” Close to the bone. Imfeld, first generation.
A visual embodiment of the family’s superior status
Dealing in mercenaries
In addition to numerous official posts in Obwalden, Marquard Imfeld’s main job was his mercenary business. He had mercenaries recruited, equipped and paid, and made them available to the French king as his own private troops. Imfeld put up the finance in advance, as was usual in the mercenary dealing business, and was only paid by the client afterwards. Just how vicious and capital-intensive that business was can be gleaned from a letter from his brother-in-law, who was sorting out an outstanding pension payment in France, 300,000 gold crowns – a horrendous sum.
How things turned out, we don’t know. One thing is certain: Imfeld was running a family military enterprise with an international outlook, while deliberately using the advantages of his situation at home. Geographically, the Confederation was a hub of Europe, and its neutrality at the time, “sitting quietly”, was a favourable basis for good business. The Imfelds are not an exceptional case. They are, rather, a model example, as evidenced by the Wirz and von Flüe families in Sarnen, other families in the towns such as the Pfyffers in Lucerne and the Erlachs in Bern, and in rural areas there were the Redings in Schwyz, the Zurlaubens in Zug, the Tschudis in Glarus, and the Salis family in Graubünden. A wide-ranging system of general contractors.
Ancient origins for young aristocracy
Class consciousness demands that one put one’s status on display. The result is the self-aggrandisement of a dynasty. At home, it is a means of positioning oneself higher up the social ladder, while abroad it enables one to present oneself on an equal footing in courtly society. The Renaissance, the “rebirth” of the classical age, offered the right ambience for this. Gisig the master stonemason based his commissions on works of his era, including Raphael (1483-1520), and his motifs hark back to late Roman times. The depiction of the victory of Emperor Constantine at the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD may, in the time of the Counter-Reformation, pay tribute to the first Christian emperor. Beyond the religious reverence, however, the motif became his corporate calling card.
Gentlemen and peasants
Common people, farmers, shepherds, sailors. They were among the many peasants who, in 1653, gave refuge to the ringleaders of the Peasants’ War who had fled from the Lucerne area. They protected the fugitives from being seized by the Lucerne city authorities when the latter despicably broke the moderate peace agreement and, having survived a scare, took drastic punitive measures. In 1654, Johann Imfeld received a gift – the Lucerne city charter – from these same authorities in this very war, for his work as an arbitrator. Lords to lords, peasants to peasants.
All-round “respectability”
In Obwalden, as in the other rural towns in Central Switzerland, in Glarus and Appenzell, the Landsgemeinde had the final say. In patrician towns – Bern, Lucerne, Freiburg, Solothurn – an exclusive circle of leading families ruled. The councillors elected themselves and held office for life. In guild towns – Zurich, Basel, Schaffhausen, St Gallen – the guilds were a decisive force. But there too, there had been an “aristocratisation” since the 16th century.
Conclusion: the political system may be completely different, but the result is similar everywhere: government by the men of “high renown, the noble and the thoroughly respectable”.
On searching and finding
There are many formulas for exploration at a scale of 1:1. More important than a specific approach is “anew”, going there again, twice, five times, ten times. Layer after layer is added, deposited, broadens the horizon. In between, there’s always the astonished question: why didn’t we notice this or that earlier? Time and again the joy of discovering, and often the joy of finding what we weren’t even looking for.
