Leipzig

Leipzig, the second commercial city of Germany, and a great literary and artistic centre, is in a fertile plain of Saxony, above the junction of the Pleisse, Parthe, and Elster, 64 miles N.W. of Dresden, and 6 miles from the Prussian frontier. It consists of the old city, the ancient fortifications of which are now marked by boulevards, and the outlying suburbs and villages. The old town is picturesque in its buildings, among them being the Rathhaus (1556), the Furstenhaus, the Pleissenburg (16th century), Auerbach's Keller, a wine vault with 16th-century wall-paintings illustrating the story of Faust, the Augusteum (now part of the university), the Paulinum (a monastic building, now the university library), the theatre, and the museum. Leipzig contains the supreme courts of the empire, the second largest university, and is the centre of the book-trade of Germany, the publisher's and booksellers having their own clearing-house. One of the chief features of the town is its three great fairs, where business to the amount of £10,000,000 is done, chiefly in furs, leather, hides, wool, cloth, linen, and glass. Beyond perfumery and artificial flower-making, and some founding of type, etc., there are few industries. Leipzig (lip, "a lime"), grew into importance in the latter part of the 12th century, and suffered much in the Thirty and the Seven Years' Wars. The last battle fought there was that of 1813 with Napoleon. Leibnitz and Wagner were natives of Leipzig.