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Our hotel in the heart of Zurich's Old Town has undergone a comprehensive renovation. And now it has been renamed as Hotel Felix, so it bears the name of one of Zurich's patron saints: Felix and Regula.
This is an incredible story that spans many centuries. We have commissioned a painting to portray it: the great artist Wolfgang Beltracchi tells the story with the strokes of his paintbrush. His work is now displayed prominently in the lobby of our hotel.
Here on this website, we are going to tell you everything about Felix and Regula – and about the picture created from their story – with the help of words, images, audio and a film. Join us and plunge into this magical world – the journey will be well worth your while!
Felix and Regula: the making of a painting
Hotel
Zürich
Felix
Wolfgang Beltracchi
DE
EN
The Hotel
INSIDER TIP for city travellers
The hotel: easygoing urban refinement
No doubt about it: Hotel Felix offers everything that city travellers seek – modern, uncluttered bedrooms that are also welcoming and equipped for comfort. A lobby where guests can sip coffee throughout the day and linger over a nightcap in the evenings. And a team of young and attentive hosts who cater to all our guests' needs.
Distinctive architecture to create an aura of easygoing urban refinement: this was the design that made Zurich architect Naomi Hajnos the winner of the 2016 architects' competition for the redevelopment of the former Hotel Basilea, now renamed as Hotel Felix. "We liked her concept, which includes many details that add up to an interpretation of Zurich," says Yves Meili: together with his brother Raffael, he bought the building for the Meili group of companies several years ago.
An interpretation of Zurich: Hotel Felix.
Patterns from Zurich's coat of arms
The hotel bears the name of Zurich's patron saint, Felix, who was martyred because of his faith. And the materials used in the building continue this local association with the city: the floor tiles, for example, are decorated with patterns from Zurich's coat of arms. The predominant colour is blue: it was chosen for the walls and the facing on the bar, the lobby and the wallpaper in the bedrooms. It is intended to recall the waters of Lake Zurich.
Adorning the hotel's lobby: the painting by Beltracchi.
A painting by the artist Wolfgang Beltracchi dominates the lobby. Almost five meters long and about two meters high, it spans the entire rear transverse wall. The picture is an artistic reappraisal of the history of Zurich's patron saints, from antiquity through to the modern era. The Meili brothers took a slow and cautious approach to the idea of commissioning an artist to produce a work that would depict the city's history in this way. "We were looking for an artist who could interpret complex historical subject-matter and could bring a project like this to fruition." Wolfgang Beltracchi took some persuading – but at the end of the day, the brothers managed to recruit this exceptional artist for this equally extraordinary project. After months of artistic toil, the picture was eventually hung in the lobby on 27 August 2020.
A precious cargo ...
Images © Alberto Venzago
... is packaged up in the studio ...
Art is displayed sparingly throughout the building, but with purposeful positioning. Each of the four storeys is dedicated to a prominent Zurich figure, and their large-format portraits – in Pop Art style – hang at the end of each corridor: Huldrych Zwingli, Alfred Escher, Gottfried Keller and Emilie Kempin-Spyri. For those who are not (yet) devotees of Zurich, let us explain exactly who they are: Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), alongside Martin Luther and John Calvin, was one of the Reformers, and he was a key figure in the Reformation of Zurich. Alfred Escher (1819–1882), one of the city's great sons, was not only a politician and entrepreneur: by building the Gotthard Tunnel, he also opened Switzerland's gateway to the south. Gottfried Keller (1819–1890) is regarded as Switzerland's national poet, and Emilie Kempin-Spyri (1853–1901) was the first woman in Switzerland to graduate with a doctorate of law and to be accepted as an academic lecturer.
... and hung in the hotel.
Afred Escher
Emilie Kempin-Spyri
Gottfried Keller
Huldrych Zwingli
THE PLEASURES OF STROLLING THROUGH ZURICH
Guests will find more perspectives of Zurich in each and every room. Above each bed, there hangs a photograph of a particular place in the city: the Bahnhofstrasse, of course, the Opera House or the Prime Tower; the Utoquai promenade, the Cassiopeiasteg boardwalk or the wharf at Wollishofen. The precise geographical coordinates are displayed alongside the photographs, to whet the appetite of visitors who want to enjoy the pleasures of strolling through the city on the river Limmat.
The city's patron Saints
unlucky in life
THE CITY'S PATRON SAINTS: FELIX AND REGULA
The name on its own ought to bring good luck: after all, Felix means "happy" in Latin. It was the name the Romans gave to those were destined for a fortunate life. That may well be why Felix is still a popular name for boys nowadays. But luck was not on the side of the Felix after whom our hotel is named. During his lifetime, he was anything but fortunate: Felix did not rise to fame as Zurich's patron saint until after his death – only after he and his sister Regula were tortured and beheaded beside the river Limmat. That was almost 2,000 years ago.
Let us travel back in time to the early years of the fourth century of the Christian era. The Roman Empire stretched far beyond Europe, around the Mare Nostrum – from Morocco, across ancient Egypt and as far as what is now Turkey. The siblings Felix and Regula, two young Egyptians, were serving as legionaries in the Roman army. They were Christians, baptised and devout: they belonged to a religious minority whose adherents were mercilessly persecuted by the Emperor Maximian. Legend has it that they were members of the Theban Legion, an exclusively Christian army unit. During a battle in Gaul, the legionaries refused to slay their Christian brothers and instead, they set about missionising their opponents on the battlefield. The Roman potentates saw this as a threat to discipline in the army, and to Rome's authority in the provinces. This was the era of the persecution of Christians and even in the Theban Legion, religious dissenters were summarily executed.
ESCAPE TO TURICUM
However, Felix and Regula managed to escape, together with their servant Exuperiantius. After traversing the Furka pass and the mountains of Uri, they arrived in the Glarnerland and eventually reached Turicum, as Zurich was called back then. They led a monastic life of fasting and prayer here. But it was not long before news of these evangelising Christian aliens reached the ears of Decius, the Roman governor of Turicum. The ruler demanded that the trio cease their missionary activities forthwith – but the siblings and their servant would not be dissuaded from proclaiming the word of Jesus. Decius resorted to torture in an attempt to force Felix and Regula to worship Jupiter and Mercury, the Roman gods. And when his efforts proved fruitless, he had the three of them beheaded without further ado.
However, Felix, Regula and Exuperiantius owe their posthumous careers as the city's patron saints not so much to their gruesome deaths, but rather to a legend which recounts how angels carried the bodies of the decapitated victims – holding their heads in their hands – for a distance of forty steps up a hill to the place where the Grossmünster church stands today. The oldest evidence of the development of this legend dates back to the eighth century and is to be found in the Abbey Library of St. Gallen. Exuperiantius, the third figure, was only added in the 13th century.
VENERATED AS SAINTS
The formation of legends based on the Christian martyrs probably served to stabilise religion in the strictly Catholic Middle Ages. Felix and Regula were venerated as saints in those times, and the sites of their execution and burial became places of pilgrimage. In the 14th century, Felix and Regula were omnipresent: on coins and seals, altarpieces and church windows. And even today, they maintain an official presence: the city's headless patron saints still adorn the seal of the Canton of Zurich. This veneration of saints was only brought to an end by the Reformation, when visual depictions of saints were banned.
The seal of the City of Zurich.
Regula and Felix on the altarpiece of the Chapel of Spannweid in Zurich .
The city's patron saints in the cloisters of Muri Abbey.
The Wasserkirche (or "Water Church") of Zurich in about 1700.
The painting
THE STORY TOLD WITH A PAINTBRUSH
THE PAINTING: A GENUINE BELTRACCHI
"Well now, what on earth are you supposed to paint if you're commissioned to produce a picture about Felix and Regula, the patron saints of Zurich?" Wolfgang Beltracchi is standing in his studio, a former ballroom in Meggen near Lucerne, as he muses at length on this question. He inclines his head slightly to one side as the next question springs to his lips in this manufactory of painting. "Where do you start?" he asks, seemingly talking to himself. "And where do you stop?"
"Where do you stop?" – Wolfgang Beltracchi.
Images © Alberto Venzago
Now, Wolfgang Beltracchi's mind has travelled back to the starting-point of this project that bears the names of Felix and Regula. He recounts how he devoured everything he could lay his hands on about the city's beheaded patron saints. He sorted this knowledge into legends and sagas, as well as events that might actually have happened. What he ultimately wanted to depict on the canvas was not a historical treatise covering several centuries of the history of the city by the Limmat – but rather, his own conception: a portrayal of the events involving Felix and Regula that have unfolded here. In ancient times. In the Middle Ages. And into the modern era of Huldrych Zwingli.
Explained through a paint brush
The result is an opus magnum in oil: the city's patron saints are our companions through the three epochs featured in the work, which is almost two meters high and over four and a half meters long. Alongside Felix and Regula, all manner of creatures and figures drift through this world of colours. In the early period, for example, we find Caturix – the Helvetic god of war. And of course Decius, the cruel Roman governor of Zurich who had Felix and Regula beheaded because they refused to renounce their Christian faith. There are ancient mythical creatures: a unicorn, dragons and snakes, and an owl as a symbol of wisdom. Later on: Hans Waldmann, the commander of the Old Swiss Confederacy, Rudolf Stüssi, the Mayor of Zurich and finally Zwingli, the great reformer.
"Like an office clerk" – Wolfgang Beltracchi
Images © Alberto Venzago
It took Wolfgang Beltracchi three long months to paint this picture – a transchronic kaleidoscope, as the experts call it. "Like an office clerk", he says with a laugh: every morning, for seven days a week, he would come into his studio and start out by sitting down on a folding chair to gaze at his work. This was a time of contemplation, allowing him to immerse himself in his painting again, time after time. Only then would he pick up his palette and mix its sixty colours together to create a constant succession of new shades, as he continued telling the story of Felix and Regula with his brush.
LIKE A FRUIT THAT HAS RIPENED
It is the morning of the final day. Wolfgang Beltracchi tells his wife Helene: "The picture will be finished at about six o'clock today." He feels it in his bones. And on a warm summer's day in August 2020, when the hands of the clock are in perfect vertical alignment, he sets his brush aside. Wolfgang Beltracchi experiences a surge of happiness. And pride. For him, the painting is now "like a fruit that has ripened." And there is a small glass of champagne for the artist as he bids farewell to his work.
