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BERLIN.
History.
Frederick the Great (1740-86) was unwearied in his efforts
to extend and embellish his capital, though he seldom made it his
residence. In G. W. von Knobelsdorff (1699-1753) he found an ar¬
chitect who was eminently capable of executing his plans. Thus in
1743 he erected the Opera House (p. 58) in a noble, almost class¬
ical style, which presented a marked contrast to the capricious and
degraded taste of the age. As the great monarch, however, had a
strong predilection for designing his new buildings in person and
for materially altering the designs submitted to him, he found the
less independent successors of Knobelsdorff more subservient to his
wishes. The Palace of Prince Henry (now the University; p. 58),
the Church of St.Hedwig (p. 59), the Royal Colonnades (p. 152),
the Library (p. 58), and the Domed Towers in the Gendarmen-
Markt (p. 121) are the principal edifices of this period. Frederick also
presented his citizens and officials with several hundred building-
sites, but characteristically insisted that, however modest the
houses erected on them might be, they should present palatial
facades towards the street. Commerce and industry (banking, mar¬
itime commerce, the manufacture of china, silk-culture, weaving)
were fostered; the Academy of Sciences, under the auspices of
French savants, awoke to new life; and the collections of art were
materially increased. At the same time a new intellectual era
began to dawn, and to this period belong the authors Lessing
(1729-81), Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86), and Nicolai (1733-1811),
and the painter and engraver Chodowiecki (1726-1801). Although
Berlin suffered severely during the Seven Tears' War, having been
twice occupied by foreign troops (1757 and 1760), the population
had increased by the end of Frederick's reign to 145,000.
Under Frederick William II. (1786-97), Frederick's successor,
the population increased much more rapidly, and in the year 1800
it amounted to no fewer than 172,000. Considerable progress
was also made in the province of art. In 1793 K. G. Langhans
(1733-1808), following the example of Knobelsdorff, erected the
Brandenburg Gate (p. 55) in the classical style, while G. Scha-
dow's Quadriga, with which it was adorned, achieved a new
triumph in the province of sculpture. The architects Gentz and
Gilly also adopted the classical style, while J. A. Carstens, a
native of Schleswig, who began his career in 1788 as professor at
the Berlin Academy, inaugurated the revival of classical taste in
painting. The theatre, formerly devoted to French plays, was now
dedicated to the national German drama, which was zealously
cultivated from the year 1796 onwards under the auspices of Iffland
(d. 1814).
The Napoleonic disasters by which Berlin was overtaken during
the reign of Frederick William III. (1797-1840) presented only a
temporary obstacle to the progress of the city. The crushing