Capella Speciosa

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Exterior view before the destruction in 1799
Interior view before the destruction in 1799

The Capella Speciosa (also: Speziosa ; literally: the beautiful or well-designed chapel or Capella Pulchra or Capella Marmorea ) was located in Klosterneuburg , Lower Austria , on the grounds of the monastery a little south of the collegiate church and is one of the oldest Gothic buildings in Austria.

The chapel was built in the course of the construction of a palace complex for Duke Leopold VI from 1198 onwards . and served as a palace chapel. It was built over a previous Romanesque building by Burgundian craftsmen in the most progressive forms of the French cathedral Gothic and consecrated in 1222. It was a single-nave, two-bay hall building with a polygonal end, which was partially lined with red and white marble.

In 1339 the building was donated to the monastery of Klosterneuburg as a donation from the sovereign . In 1787, however, it fell victim to Josephinism and was first desecrated and demolished in 1799. Parts of the chapel were reused in the construction of the Laxenburg Franzensburg . The Gothic sandstone pulpit with a tracery parapet from the beginning of the 14th century was transferred to the St. Wolfgang branch church in Kirchberg am Wechsel in 1928 . Some glass paintings showing Leopold VI., The risen Christ and Margravine Agnes first came to Laxenburg and are now part of the Laxenburg window in the Steyr parish church . In addition, some wooden figures from the second half of the 14th century have been preserved in the monastery museum, depicting Christ and the apostles and which are almost certainly originally attached to the gallery of the Capella Speciosa.

Uncovered foundations of the Capella Speciosa

The foundation walls of the chapel were exposed and documented as early as 1953, but then filled in again. In the summer of 2005, the foundations were uncovered again as part of subsequent excavations by the Federal Monuments Office and have been made accessible to the public at Stiftsplatz since May 6, 2006.

Between 1993 and 1995 a team from the Vienna University of Technology (Mario Schwarz, Andreas Voigt, Hans-Peter Walchhofer and Elmar Schmidinger) reconstructed the Capella Speciosa with the help of a computer.

literature

  • Mathilde Grünewald, The ancient, prehistoric and medieval finds from the excavations on the Stiftsplatz zu Klosterneuburg 1953–1954 (Capella Speciosa), in: Yearbook of Klosterneuburg Monastery, Vol. 12, Klosterneuburg 1983, pp. 95–274.
  • Austrian Federal Monuments Office (ed.), Dehio manual. The art monuments of Austria. Lower Austria south of the Danube , part 1, Horn-Wien 2003, pp. 1049-1050.
  • Floridus Röhrig, Klosterneuburg Monastery and its art treasures , St. Pölten-Vienna 1984.
  • Maria Schwarz, The former Capella Speciosa in Klosterneuburg, in: Karl Holubar (ed.), Die Krone des Landes , Klosterneuburg 1996, p. 17ff.
  • Mario Schwarz, A virtual reconstruction of the Klosterneuburg Capella Speciosa, in: Arx , Vol. 21, Obernzenn-Bozen 1999, pp. 41–44.
  • Mario Schwarz: The architecture of the 13th century in Austria, the construction activity of Duke Leopold VI. - Klosterneuburg, Pfalz and Capella Speciosa , pages 96-133; Böhlau Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3-205-78866-9 .
  • Margareta Vyoral-Tschapka, Christ and the Apostles from the Capella Speciosa in Klosterneuburg. A cycle of sculptures from the end of the 14th century in the monastery museum, in: Yearbook of Klosterneuburg Monastery , vol. 20, Klosterneuburg 2008, pp. 257–283.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mario Schwarz: The architecture of the 13th century in Austria, page 99
  2. ^ Rudolf Koch: Historical Art. A Gothic architectural monument in Austria - the parish church in Steyr Published in: Zeitschrift Oberösterreich 29th Jg., 4/1979, pp. 45–54.

Web links

Commons : Capella Speciosa  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 18 ′ 21.9 ″  N , 16 ° 19 ′ 35.6 ″  E