This project develops a digital platform for studying the intertwined architectural and historical development of medieval Speyer, focusing on two major monuments: Speyer Cathedral and the city’s medieval synagogue. The project was developed into a submission for an ISF (Israeli Science Foundation) grant and was awarded funding in August 2026. It utilizes an interactive digital timeline to plot the Cathedral’s major Romanesque phases, including its rebuilding under Conrad II and later expansion under Henry III and Henry IV, alongside the evolution of the Speyer Jewry-Court and synagogue complex. In this way, it will provide a visual means of exploring the overlapping Christian and Jewish architectural histories in Speyer, allowing their entangled histories to emerge. To this end, the project will create a relational database that brings together textual sources, visual materials, measurements, architectural drawings, 360-degree photographs, maps, and 2D and 3D visual data. These materials will be used to build an interactive timeline and map that will allow users to compare the building phases, political events, urban changes, and histories of Christian and Jewish institutions as they unfolded and intersected in Speyer. By placing these histories on the same timeline and spatial interface, the project will make visible connections that have hitherto remained obscured across separate bodies of scholarship.
The project’s contribution is threefold: it integrates Jewish and Christian architectural history within a single urban framework in an interactive map; it develops a digital method for connecting time, space, political history, and architectural evidence; and it offers a new model for visualizing medieval cities through an interactive map, timeline, and architectural reconstructions. Speyer is a natural starting point for such an endeavour, since Henry IV was instrumental in both architectural commissions, making their comparison essential for understanding the city’s medieval development. In addition, the two bishops involved in the construction of the church also had close relations to the Jewish communities and influenced the history of Speyer’s Jews. The cathedral and synagogue – religious structures with outstanding architectural features –were also central to the identities of their respective Christian and Jewish communities. Although they have usually been studied separately, their proximity and interconnected circumstances invite consideration together, revealing how both were shaped by overlapping political, urban, and architectural processes.