GOTHA (originally Coteyewe, or Got awe, and later Gotaha, or Gοthau), a town of Germany, formerly capital of the old duchy of Gotha, and now, alternately with Coburg, the residence of the duke of Saxe-Coburg. Gotha is situated on a canal of the Leina, and on the Thuringian railway, about 6 miles north of the Thuringian Forest. It consists of the town proper and four suburbs, which are grouped in the shape of a half-moon to the north, west, and east of the hill on which, at the height of 1086 feet, stands the castle of Friedenstein. With the exception of those in the older portion of the town, the streets are handsome and spacious, and the beautiful gardens and promenades between the suburbs and the castle add greatly to the town’s attractiveness. On the other side of the castle there is an extensive and finely adorned park. To the north-west of the town the Gulberg hill,—on which there is a public pleasure garden,—and to the south-west the Leeberg hill, rise to a height of over 1300 feet, and afford extensive views of a beautiful panorama. The castle, begun by Ernest the Pious in 1643 and completed in 1654, occupies the site of the old fortress of Grimmenstein. It is a huge square building flanked with two wings, having towers rising to the height of about 140 feet. It contains the ducal coin cabinet, and the ducal library of nearly 200,000 volumes, among which are several rare editions, and about 6900 manuscripts. The picture gallery, the cabinet of engravings, the natural history museum, the Chinese museum, and the cabinet of art, which includes a collection of Egyptian, Etruscan, Roman, and German antiquities, are now included in a new building, completed in 1878, which stands on the southern terrace of the castle. The principal other public buildings are the ...Margaret church,—with a beautiful portal and a lofty tower,—founded in the 12th century, twice burnt down, and rebuilt in its present form in 1652; the Augustines or Cloister church, with an altar-piece by the painter Jacobs; the theatre; the fire insurance bank and the life insurance bank; the ducal palace, in the Italian villa style, with a winter garden and picture gallery; the buildings of the legislature of the duchy; the hospital; the old town-house, dating from the 11th century; the old dwelling-house of the painter Lucas Cranach, now used as a girls’ school; the ducal stable; and the Friedrichsthal palace. The educational establishments include excellent city schools, a gymnasium (founded in 1524, one of the most famous in Germany), a ladies’ school of the first order, a training school for teachers and another for female teachers, a free school, a trade school, and a commercial school. Among the other institutions are a lying-in hospital, a surgical and eye hospital, a private lunatic asylum, an orphanage, a reformatory, a magdalen institute, and a school for the board and education of destitute girls. The observatory, erected by Duke Ernest II. in 1787, was in 1857 transferred to a new site in the neighbourhood of the park. Formerly the town obtained its water supply by means of the Leina canal, which was excavated in 1369, but water for drinking purposes has since 1874 been obtained from the Thuringian Forest. Gotha is one of the most active commercial towns of Thuringia, its manufactures including sausages, for which it has a great reputation, porcelain, tobacco, sugar, machinery, mechanical and surgical instruments, musical instruments, shoes, lamps, and toys. There are also a number of nurseries and market gardens. The book trade is represented by about a dozen firms, including that of the great geographical house of Perthes, Population (1875), 22,928.
• Gotha existed as a village in the time of Charlemagne. In 930 the Abbot Gotthard of Uersfeld surrounded it with walls. It was known as a town as early as 1109, about which time it came into the possession of the landgraves of Thuringia. On the extinction of that line Gotha came into the possession of the electors of Saxony, and on the division of their estates between Frederick the Softhearted and William, it fell to the share of the latter, after whose death it was inherited by the Ernestine line of dukes. After the battle of Mühlberg in 1547, the castle of Grimmenstein was partly destroyed, but it was again restored in 1554. In 1566 the town was taken from Duke John Frederick by August of Saxony. After the death without issue of John Frederick’s two sons, it came into the possession of Duke Ernest the Pious, the fourth of the line of the dukes of Gotha; and on the extinction of this line it was, in 1826, united, along with the dukedom, to Coburg.
See Gotha und seine Umgebung, Gotha, 1851; Kühne, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Entwickelung der socialen Zustände der Stadt und des Herzogthums Gotha, Gotha, 1862; Humbert, Les villes de la Thuringe, Paris, 1869; and Beck, Geschichte der Stadt Gotha, Gotha, 1870.
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