All Saints Chapel (Regensburg)
The All Saints Chapel is a small building on the cloister of Regensburg Cathedral and served as the mausoleum of the builder, Bishop Hartwig II von Spanheim . As the first bishop of Regensburg, he was no longer buried in the monastery of Sankt Emmeram . The chapel is dated around the middle of the 12th century, since Bishop Hartwig died in 1164.
Romanesque painting
The All Saints Chapel is one of the few church rooms from the 12th century that has retained its original furnishings without any significant later additions. The theme of the paintings is the All Saints Office , which can be seen mainly from earlier tapes . The remains of the inscriptions can no longer be combined into texts today and are therefore referred to as blind writing tapes, which seem to connect the separate spatial bodies with one another.
The All Saints Chapel consists of a heavenly part, the octagon drum and the dome , and an earthly part, the base zone and the conches . There is an interaction between painting and architecture in all areas . Painting is therefore part of architecture.
Dome and tambour
The representation of the heavenly hierarchy with Christ as the ruler of the world in the dome does not follow the theme of the Apocalypse from the All Saints Office. The apocalyptic lamb in the middle is missing. Christ is surrounded by a kind of wheel spokes with eight angels .
The windows below are surrounded by ornamental strips made of heart-shaped palmettes . In the reveals of the eastern drum window , three martyrs are symbolized, which can no longer be fully identified due to the poor state of preservation of the painting. In the further window reveals there are groups of three saints who were marked with the inscription Fides, Spes and Karitas, the conditions of the ascent to bliss.
Under the windows there are medallions with half-length busts without halves . They carry scepter-like objects that end in a disc and appear in a similar form in depictions of rulers in the local illumination of the time. They are supposed to represent personifications of earthly power.
Ostkonche
In the eastern conche, the angel of the Last Judgment stands on the solar disk between the windows and commands the angels over the four ends of the world to hold back the winds until the servants of God, i.e. the twelve tribes of Israel, are marked. From the great sun angel go out two tapes with Rev 7.3 EU in Latin. At the feet of the angels lies a bundle of wavy lines stylizing the winds. The four wind angels float between heaven and earth and mediate between these two levels.
In the base zone there is a painted curtain in an almost modeling representation of the folds. The hem looks like it's attached to nails. A meander frieze is shown above it.
Side conches
In the two side cones, two crowned female figures are enthroned above the windows and are surrounded by standing figures. Both figures have a nimbus and are shown oversized compared to their neighboring figures . Behind their heads a banner divides, which extends from the dove of the Holy Spirit over the north and a bust of Christ over the south conche. The other figures can be identified as representatives of secular power through their clothing with cloaks and tunics .
literature
- Jörg Traeger : Medieval architectural fiction . The All Saints Chapel at the Regensburg Cathedral cloister. Schneller, Munich and Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7954-0819-9 .
- Josef Anton Endres, Karl Reich (ed.): Contributions to the art and cultural history of medieval Regensburg. Josef Habbel, Regensburg 1924.
- Felix Mader: City of Regensburg. Cathedral and St. Emmeram. Munich 1933 ( Die Kunstdenkmäler von Bayern . Vol. 2,22,1.), Pp. 216–221.
- Hans Karlinger: The high Romanesque wall painting in Regensburg. Publishing house for practical art studies, Munich 1920.
- Josef Anton Endres: The wall paintings of the All Saints Chapel in Regensburg. In: Journal of Christian Art. Vol. 25, 1912, ISSN 0935-7041 , pp. 43-50.
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 1 ′ 11 ″ N , 12 ° 5 ′ 56 ″ E