Predigerkloster

[3] Initially, against the resistance of the Grossmünster canons, the Dominicans' inclusion in Zurich was granted in 1233/1235, "because they tirelessly drove the little foxes in the vineyard of the Lord".

[4] Located at the medieval Neumarkt quarter, the commonly named Predigerkloster was first mentioned in 1234 AD as a monastery of the Dominican Order.

[5] The monastery was built at the edge of the city on a flat terrace between the now subterranean Wolfbach stream and today's Hirschengraben street.

Among other things, the orthogonal structure of the monastery, the town fortifications, and the Chorgasse and Predigergasse lanes are evident, and especially the latter is essential for this quarter; it leads from Neumarkt in a straight line to the southern portal, which was the main entrance to the church.

It was in charge of the pastoral care of the Oetenbach and Winterthur-Töss nunneries as well as the urban communities of the female Beguines, who lived nearby the Dominican and Franciscan mendicants in separate quarters outside the monasterys.

[6] In 1259 Count Rudolf IV von Rapperswil, Countess Elisabeth's father, donated specific duties and lands "in den Widen" for the construction of the Dominikanerinnenkloster Maria Zuflucht.

The revolution of 1336 that Rudolf Brun and his entourage brought to power[8] was followed by a period of economic uncertainty reaching its peak with the plague of 1348/49, the persecution and killing of the Jewish citizens of the so-called Synagogengasse in 1349,[9] as well as the "Zurich night of murder" (Mordnacht) by 1350, a failed counter coup of Brun's opposition under the son of Johann I (Habsburg-Laufenburg), Johann II.

After the construction of the new hospital in 1842, they became the so-called "Versorgungsanstalt" where chronically ill, old, incurable mental patients were housed; the contemporaries complained until in 1870 when the Burghölzli sanatory was built.

[1][2] On 28 June 1914, the citizens of Zurich agreed to the establishment of the Central Library (German: Zentralbibliothek), that was completed according to the plans by Hermann Fietz in 1917.