An equestrian monument to Hans Waldmann at Zurich’s the Münsterhof plaza reminds of that onetime mayor’s beheading on this date in 1489.
His city’s most outstanding personality of the age, Waldmann (English Wikipedia entry | the far more detailed German) sprang from merchant stock. He’d soared to the top in his Swiss city-state via his gift for military command, which stood Zurich in good stead during the Burgundian Wars.
Despite his war heroism, the peasantry of Zurich’s rural proximities soon grew to hate Waldmann as the spear tip of the urban oligarchy. Notoriously, he ordered the destruction of peasants’ dogs to preserve the hunting privilege for the powerful.
On the first of April, a revolt toppled Waldmann’s authority. He was arrested on a diverse slate of accusations including treason, peculation, and sexual corruption.
For the four days intervening, he endured “ceaseless torture, hanging, and stretching,” but the mayor retained enough vigor to walk “manly” and “proud” (in the words of a Bernese observer) to his scaffold.
Detail view (click for the full-page illustration) of Hans Waldmann’s beheading, from the Lucerne Chronicle (1513).
On this day..
- 1844: John Gavin, the first European hanged in Western Australia
- 1196: William FitzOsbert, medieval rebel
- 1724: Sister Geltruda and Fra Romualdo, at a Palermo auto de fe
- 1985: Major Zin Mo, failed assassin
- 1772: Mary Hilton
- 1571: James Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews and uncle of a crack shot
- 1752: Mary Blandy, "forgiveness powder"
- 1857: Francis Richeux, witnessed by Tolstoy
- 1945: Kim Malthe-Bruun, Yours, but not forever
- 1199: Pierre Basile, marksman
- 1758: William Page, forgotten highwayman
- 1888: Jochin Henry Timmerman, "don't let them take you alive"