Bom, a city of Rhenish Prussia, on the left bank of the Rhine, 15 m. S. S. E. of Cologne; pop. in 1871, 26,020, of whom about 4,300 were Protestants, 500 Jews, and the rest Roman Catholics. It is finely situated on an eminence in a fertile region, 10 m. N. N. W. of the peak of Drachenfels. It has seven gates, and with its many gardens presents a cheerful appearance. The finest public square, Munster-platz, adjoining the cathedral, is planted with trees, and has a monument of Beethoven, who was born at Bonn. The bust of Arndt was placed in 1865 on the beautiful promenade of the Alte Zoll, and his house and garden have been presented to the town for conversion into a turners' hall. Bunsen died here in 1860. The monument of Niebuhr, by Rauch, is in the cemetery outside the Sternen gate. A. W. von Schlegel and Schumann were also buried here. The cathedral or minster, surmounted by five towers, contains a bronze statue of St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, and supposed founder of the church. The central tower, the windows of the nave, and the cloisters are its most remarkable parts.

The church of St. Remigius contains a picture by Spielberg of the baptism of Clovis. A Protestant church has been established since 1864. The town hall, on the market place, is a handsome modern building; but the most renowned public edifice is the university, the chief source of the celebrity and prosperity of Bonn, and the most elegant and extensive academical building of Germany. It was formerly an electoral palace, and contains a hall decorated with frescoes, lecture rooms, a library with over 200,-000 volumes, a museum of Rhenish antiquities, a cabinet of natural history, and an archaeological museum. There are separate buildings for the anatomical theatre and chemical laboratory. The villa of Poppelsdorf, formerly an electoral chateau, a mile from the town, belongs to the university, and contains apartments for the officers and professors, lecture rooms, galleries of painting, and a collection of natural history. Here are situated the botanical gardens, an agricultural institute with an area of over 100 acres, and a manufactory of earthenware and pottery. On the fine road to Poppelsdorf is the observatory.

The university was founded in 1786 by the archbishop Maximilian Frederick. In 1802 it was converted by the French into a lyceum, but restored upon a much larger scale in 1818 by Frederick William III., and provided by him with the present palace. There are five faculties, namely, of Protestant and Roman Catholic theology, medicine, jurisprudence, and philosophy; the teachers include about 90 professors and adjuncts, and the number of students is nearly 900. Prince Albert and his son Prince Alfred studied here, and among the professors have been some of the most learned men of Germany. - Bonn occupies the site of the ancient Bonna, a town of the Ubii, afterward a Roman stronghold, included in Germania Secunda. According to Tacitus, Civilis here defeated the Roman troops under Gallus. Bonn is said to have embraced Christianity in the year 88. It was destroyed in 355 by German tribes, and rebuilt in 359 by Julian; and it was again almost ruined by the Northmen in 881. The archbishop of Cologne-surrounded the town with walls in 1240, and conferred many privileges upon it; and the emperor Charles IV. was crowned here in 1346. The French took it in 1673, surrendered it to the prince of Orange and Montecuculi in the same year, regained possession in 1688, and lost it in 1689, when it was bombarded and captured by Frederick III., elector of Brandenburg. In 1703 it was taken by Coehorn after three days' bombardment, and most of the fortifications were razed in 1717. It was under French domination from 1801 to 1814, when it was made part of Prussia.

University of Bonn.