Only in Cologne by Duncan J.D. Smith

35 Innenstadt theWorld Cup in 1966, and a figure of the craftsman Alois Olmscheidt, who devoted forty eight years of his life to restoring the cathedral. Passing around the eastern apse there is a small garden con- taining a battered colonnade. This once connected a Romanesque col- legiate church with the cathedral’s eighth century predecessor – the so-called Old Cathedral (Alter Dom) – which itself occupied the site of the early fourth century ba- silica of Maternus, Cologne’s first known bishop. A little further on one reaches the Cathedral Treas- ury (Domschatzkammer), where part of the even older Roman city wall can be seen (see no. 12). The tour now returns to the main fa- çade and enters the cathedral. First stop is the northern tran- sept, where there is a late seven- teenth century Baroque Madonna, her white silk gown covered with the ex-votos of those who have been cured by praying to her. To the left are some hanging metal rods, which indicate the number of years of the current archbishop’s tenure. Mov- ing towards the apse, the Chapel of the Holy Cross is passed in the northern part of the choir, where an inscribed stone records privileges given to the Jews by the archbishop in 1266. Despite this there is a carv- ing on one of the early fourteenth century wooden stalls in the centre of the choir (the largest Gothic choir stall in Germany) that depicts a man being suckled by a pig, an example of medieval anti-Semitism. Im- mediately beyond the inscription is the Chapel of the Cross containing a miracle-working Crucifix donated by Archbishop Gero in 976. It is the oldest surviving monumental crucifix in the West. Another chapel, in the apse itself, is dedicated to Saint John and contains the world’s larg- est technical drawing of a cathedral. Created around 1283 it is hidden behind a green velvet curtain to protect it from the sun. In the centre of the apse, and directly behind the High Altar, lies an The mighty twin towers of Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom)