(Ger. München), a town of Germany, capital of the kingdom of Bavaria, and the seat of an archbishop, stands on the left bank of the Isar, 1650 feet above sea-level, and 225 miles W. of Vienna; N. Lat. 48. 8. 40., and E. Long. 11. 34. 40. It is situated in the middle of an uninteresting plain, bounded on the E. by a range of low hills, and on the S. by the Tyrolese Alps, which rise to a considerable height some 20 miles from the town. Their contiguity, coupled with the great elevation of Munich, render it very subject to sudden changes, as well as to extremes of temperature. The city consists of an old and new town, the former occupying the centre round which the new town or suburbs have been erected. These are six in number, and comprise the Ludwig, Max, and Schoenfeld suburbs, on the W., N., and E.; the Isar and St Anna's suburbs, between the old town and the river, and the Au suburb, on the other side of the same. Great additions have been made to Munich during the last fifty years. Possessing neither manufactures nor trade of any importance, it owes its increase solely to the amount of court favour bestowed on it; and now there are few, if any, towns in Europe of the same size which contain so many public edifices and institutions devoted to the purposes of art and science, as this the capital of Bavaria and acknowledged metropolis of Southern Germany. The streets of the old town are generally straight, but many of them are narrow, and the houses exceedingly lofty and quaint-looking. In the suburbs, on the other hand, the streets have been laid out at right angles, and the houses are more modern in appearance. From the extent of ground devoted to those environs, however, many of the streets and squares are not fully occupied by houses, but display frequent gaps. Between the suburbs and the old town there are several open places occupying the site of the old walls; the principal are Maximilian's and Karl's squares. Of the old ramparts, the only remnants are several of the gates. Among the numerous public buildings which give character to the town, the churches are first worthy of remark. The Frauenkirche, or cathedral, commenced in 1468, is built about the centre of Munich, off the Kaufinger Strasse, the main street of the town. It is a plain, massive building of brick, with two towers surmounted by domes, each rising to the height of 336 feet. The nave of the church measures the same length as the towers, and is 170 feet in breadth; while the windows are 66 feet in height. A number of small chapels, formed by the buttresses, which in this edifice are brought within the building, are ranged round its sides. In front of the altar is the mausoleum of Ludwig IV., Emperor of Germany, erected in 1622 by the Elector Maximilian I. It is formed of black marble, supported on each side by statues of the dukes Albrecht V. and Wilhelm V.; while at each of the four corners there is the figure of a fully-harnessed knight resting on one knee. It was designed by Candido, whose works are highly estimated in Bavaria. St Michael's church, formerly a chapel of the Jesuits, and standing a short distance from the cathedral, was commenced in 1583, and belongs to the later Italian style of architecture. Its interior, however, presents but few objects of attraction, excepting Thorwaldsen's monument of the Duke of Leuchtenberg which exhibits great power of grouping. St Peter's, in the Rinder market, is the oldest church in Munich; it was built in 1370, and restored in 1607, having been injured by a stroke of lightning in that year. The churches of more recent date are—St Ludwig's; All Saints'; St Boniface's, with a Benedictine monastery attached; and Mariahilf, in the suburb of Au. The first was commenced in 1829, and belongs to the Byzantine style; it is surmounted by two towers, each 208 feet high, and the length of the nave is 237 feet. All Saints' chapel is in the same style, but of smaller dimensions; while the Basilica of St Boniface is an imitation of St Paul's at Rome; it was commenced in 1835, and completed in 1850. Many admirable frescoes adorn the walls of these churches, from designs by Cornelius and Hess, and no expense has been spared in the carvings and statuary of the buildings. There are also a Protestant place of worship, a synagogue, and a Greek chapel.

But the largest edifice in Munich is the royal residence, comprising the old palace, flanked by the Koenigsbau and the Festsaalbau. The first was designed by Candido, and commenced at the end of the sixteenth century, but it is not remarkable for architectural beauty. The chapel attached, however, is very richly ornamented, and contains, among other relics, what is said to be the veritable hand of John the Baptist. The old portion of the palace contains the treasury chambers, where the crowns of the realm are preserved, along with many valuable jewels, one of which, a blue diamond, weighs 36 carats. Flanking this building, and fronting the Max-Joseph Square, is the Neuer Koenigsbau, or New Palace, a fine massive building in imitation of the Pitti Palace in Florence. The floors of the apartments are inlaid with variegated woods, and the walls are covered with frescoes representing scenes from the Niebelungen Lied, the poems of Walter of Vogelweide, and other works. The Festsaalbau, or building devoted to court receptions, balls, &c., is even more gorgeously fitted up than the New Palace. Among other apartments, the "halls of the beauties," adapted for card-playing, displays great taste in arrangement, and contains portraits of a number of modern beauties by Stieler. The Charlemagne rooms, so named from the number of pictures therein representing the chief scenes in the life of that monarch, is on the west side of the great ball-room, which measures 123 feet in length, by 47½ in width, and is profusely decorated with reliefs and paintings in the Pompeian style. The palace is provided with a royal garden; while the court theatre is in close proximity, occupying a prominent position in the Max-Joseph Square, where the General Post-office likewise stands. The Pinakothek, or picture gallery, one of the most extensive in Germany, stands in an open place in the suburb of Max. Directly opposite is the New Pinakothek, and in an adjoining square is the Glyptothek, or sculpture gallery. These three buildings form together the centre-point of art in South Germany. Their collections have been brought together and maintained by the zealous care of the court. The Old Pinakothek, commenced in 1826 and finished in 1836, was designed by Klenze, and is a long building, with wings on either side. The paintings are arranged historically, and occupy different rooms. They belong chiefly to the German and Dutch schools; but there is also a large collection of pictures by Rubens, and a considerable assortment of the Italian, French, and Spanish schools. The New Pinakothek, a smaller edifice, was opened in 1853, and is devoted to paintings of the nineteenth century. But perhaps even more interesting than either of the foregoing is the Glyptothek, containing a most valuable collection of ancient statuary and reliefs, formed by the late King Ludwig. It is an elegant building, in the Ionic style, designed by Klenze, and opened in 1830. Various apartments are occupied with Egyptian, Etruscan, and Eginetan antiquities; also with the statues from the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, which are deservedly famous. There are separate rooms for the statues of Apollo, Bacchus, and the sons of Niobe, besides others devoted to coloured sculpture and to Roman and modern works. For students of the fine arts few towns, indeed, present such advantages as Munich. Besides the great institutions above mentioned, there are many of less pretension, containing valuable collections of ancient coins, sculptures, paintings, &c. A polytechnic institution, an academy of painting with eleven professors, and schools of architecture and music, are likewise established here for the advancement of art. The Royal Library, a very fine new building in Ludwig's Strasse, contains the largest number of volumes in Germany. They are variously estimated from 400,000 to 800,000, with 22,000 MSS., among which are a copy of Demosthenes, written on cotton paper from Chios, and the oldest manuscripts of the Niebelungen Lied, which formerly belonged to a convent in the Grisons. The other most important institutions of Munich are as follows:—The university, transferred here from Landshut in 1826, having faculties of theology, law, political economy, medicine, and philosophy, attended by 1700 students, and possessing a library of 147,000 vols. and 3294 MSS.; a veterinary seminary, with 8 instructors; a female school Municipal of midwifery; and a military academy, attended by 142 cadets; also a school for the deaf and dumb; a royal blind asylum, with 7 teachers and 66 inmates; and a seminary for lame children, having 3 teachers and 15 scholars. There is also a royal institution, open to the children of the nobility, who are brought up here at the royal bounty till they are old enough to enter the cadet school or the university; the inmates number 24, and the teachers 16. The Royal Academy of Munich, comprising the three departments of philology, natural philosophy, and history, is composed of about 320 members, and has two commissions connected with it for the advancement of natural science and technology in Bavaria. An observatory, a botanical garden, and several museums, are also here. The general prison is remarkably well conducted, on the principles of a reformatory more than of a gaol. The inmates are forced to work at their respective trades, and any profits that may arise thereon are paid over to them on leaving. Munich is ornamented with a fine park, called the English Garden, and also with many fine monuments, the most interesting of which is the bronze obelisk in Caroline Platz, raised to the memory of 30,000 Bavarians who were lost during the Russian campaign of 1812-13, in which they formed part of Napoleon's army.

The manufactures of the town are unimportant, and are mostly connected with science and the fine arts. They comprise philosophical instruments, paint-colours, lithographic stones, gold and silver lace, carriages, and cloth-stuffs, besides paper, oil, &c. There is a considerable trade in literature, and twelve newspapers are published in the town. Munich is connected by railway with France and North Germany, and will shortly have the same means of communication with Austria and Italy.

The history of Munich commences with the thirteenth century, when it was known as a walled town, whose arms or shield bore the representation of a monk. The Emperor Ludwig took up his residence in it in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and restored and enlarged it in 1327, after a destructive conflagration. It became the capital of Bavaria about the beginning of the next century, and for many years after increased slowly but steadily in importance. In 1632 the town was entered by Gustavus Adolphus, and its arsenal demolished; but with the exception of this event, its history has been one of undisturbed peace. The ultimate advancement of Munich, however, to the rank of a first-rate town was reserved for the reign of Ludwig I., at the commencement of the present century. This monarch, both when crown-prince and king, used his utmost efforts, by means of erecting new galleries of art, and building additional suburbs, to raise this town to the position of the Athens of Germany, and his endeavours have certainly to a great extent been crowned with success. The population of the town has increased more rapidly perhaps than any town on the Continent. Pop. of town and suburbs (1812) 40,638; (1846) 113,384; (1855) 132,112.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATION: MUNICIPALITY. The institutions so familiarly known throughout Christendom by these or similarly-derived names, owe their origin to the peculiar internal constitution of ancient Rome. Her citizens, self-relying and impatient of control, adjusted their method of internal government to republican and representative principles, while their haughty spirit of domination over the rest of the world led them to demand conformity among their dependents, and to stamp the character of their own peculiar institutions over the wide arena of their conquests. The protracted vitality which carried the municipal system, through the breaking up of the empire, to a resuscitation in amalgamation both with southern feudalism and the Saxon institutions of Britain, forms one of the most curious and eventful features in the constitutional history of the modern European nations.

One of the leading social contrasts between modern Europe and the ancient communities with whom we have acquaintance is, that the feudal system rendered the country equal, if not superior, to the towns; while in ancient nations all greatness, power, and wealth seem to have been concentrated in cities, as in Babylon, Nineveh, Tyre, and Carthage. If there were nomadic leaders of rank and mark, they bore scarcely a higher relative position towards the rulers and other great men dwelling in cities, than an Australian squatter might bear in the present day to the head of some great territorial house among the British aristocracy. Egypt seems to have possessed wealth and greatness beyond the walls of a predominant city; but, peculiar in its geographic character, as a narrow stripe of marvellously fertile land, it might be deemed one continuous city. In Greece, too, although a common spirit of nationality prevailed, and no central city exercised unrivalled control, yet the prevailing political power was in the cities. But to whatever extent the constitution in other ancient cities may have influenced that of Rome, they have had no direct effect on the creation of the municipalities of the middle ages and modern times, which naturally take whatever they have derived through the ancient world from that one great municipal corporation, which professed to govern all the nations of the earth.

The governing bodies in modern municipal corporations—the mayors, aldermen, bailies, common council, &c.—are the direct representatives of the comitia curiata and the senate of ancient Rome. It is of course in the form which it had developed in the later days of the empire that we must seek for the chosen models on which later municipalities were formed. The formation of the Roman constitution, as a separate and more extensive object of inquiry, goes back to far earlier periods; but the time when it was dispersed over multitudes of smaller communities as a form of provincial burgal government, corresponds with the establishment of the imperial authority over what is called the Roman world. Hence the subsidiary municipalities were modelled on Rome, not as a republic, but as an empire. The republican forms, however, subsisted after the empire had been long established, and were thus communicated to the municipalities. Cicero, in his second philippic against Anthony, desiring to describe the several elements of the Italian organization in their order, says, "Horum flagitiorum iste vestigis, omnia municipia, prefectura, colonias, totam denique Italiam, impressit."

After the two principal classes of municipal institutions, the municipia and the coloniae, Savigny enumerates as inferior corporations fora, conciliabula, and castella,—all communities partaking more or less of the elements of the highest and most perfect municipal organization, the municipium. When the citizens elected their magistrates and made laws in Rome, they did the like in the municipalities; and when the power was transferred to the emperor and the senate in the imperial city, it fell into the hands of the curia, or council of decuriones, in the cities or municipalities, acting under the Roman governor of the province, who represented the emperor. The magistrates were chosen from the curia, as those of modern corporations are elected by the council; and a practice arose by which those leaving office presented their successors for adoption. The supreme elective magistrates in the municipalities—the representatives of the consulate in Rome—were termed duumviri or quattuorviri, according as their regulated number was two or four.

Such appears to have been the prevailing character of the municipium; but there were many varieties in the constitution of Roman cities, as there are in those of the present day. In some the elective rulers were called quinquinales, because they retained office for five years; while in others the magistrate virtually supreme was a censor or a prefect sent from Rome. In all in-