Numerous personalities have found their final resting place at Mainz Main Cemetery over the past 221 years. And numerous artists have ensured that art historians are still studying the gravesites today and continue to uncover new insights even after such a long time.

One of them is Dr. Hans-Jürgen Kotzur. The former diocesan conservator and museum director has now published a paper on the Mainz grave monuments of the sculptor Johann Baptist Scholl, known as "the Younger."

The people of Mainz know him primarily because he helped shape Schillerplatz, where a bronze figure of the famous poet stands right next to the Fastnachtsbrunnen fountain. Less well known are the sculptor's grave monuments, which are located in Mainz's main cemetery.

"He was demonstrably the only artist in 19th-century Mainz who represented an avant-garde style," says author Hans-Jürgen Kotzur. "It was not until the end of the century that comparable ornamental forms and architectural ideas could be found again, notably in Antoni Gaudi's "Sacrada familia" in Barcelona," emphasizes the former monument conservator.

The 50-page publication is available for download here and will be available free of charge to interested parties at the cemetery office and at events.