The Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums ( Academic School of the Johanneum, short: Johanneum) is a Gymnasium, or grammar school, in Hamburg, Germany. It is Hamburg's oldest school and was founded in 1529 by Johannes Bugenhagen. The school's focus is on the teaching of Latin and Ancient Greek. It is proud of having educated some of Germany's political leaders and some of Germany's notable scientists. The school is operated and financed by the city of Hamburg.
History
The Johanneum was founded by Johannes Bugenhagen, the spiritual representative of the reformer Martin Luther. In 1528 he came to Hamburg to give the city an Evangelical Lutheran church order, "the Erbarn Stadt Hamborch Christlike Ordeninge". On 24 May, 1529, the Johanneum first opened its doors in the building of the secularized old St. Johannis monastery, on the site of today's Rathausmarkt as the "Latinsche Schole". The actual school rooms were in half-timbered buildings in the inner courtyard of the monastery. In the beginning, the Johanneum was a school of scholars. Later, it devoted itself to the education of sons of merchants and traders in a second branch, the citizens' school.
New building at the Speersort
In 1826 the order for the new school was placed, but the lack of funds made it initially not possible to implement it. From 1838 to 1840, the new building at the Speersort was finally built on the site of the cathedral demolished in 1806, where the germ cell of Hamburg once stood, the so-called Hammaburg. At the same time, the medieval Johannis monastery was demolished. The imposing classicist new building, designed by Carl Ludwig Wimmel (1786–1845) and Franz Gustav Forsmann (1795–1878), to be entered from the south through the main entrance, had two wing structures leading to today's cathedral street through arcades were connected. The building was based on competing designs by Alexis de Chateauneuf (1799–1853) and Carl Ludwig Wimmel. The patriciate of the city republic of Hamburg was brought up humanistically in the Johanneum, important scholars and authors of the early Enlightenment worked here (Hermann Samuel Reimarus, Barthold Heinrich Brockes, Michael Richey, Johann Albert Fabricius, and others), Georg Philipp Telemann and Philipp Emanuel Bach were cantors here, and this established a lasting tradition and reputation. The Johanneum survived the Great Fire of 1842, which caused numerous buildings to go up in flames.
