St. Pölten Cathedral
The St. Pölten Cathedral is a cathedral church and has been the cathedral of the diocese of St. Pölten since 1785 . Until the dissolution of the St. Pölten Augustinian Canons' Monastery in 1784, it was its monastery church . The cathedral and parish church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary belongs to the deanery of St. Pölten . Despite the well-preserved late Romanesque core, the building appears as a baroque structure and is a listed building .
history
Previous buildings
The origins of today's St. Pölten Monastery (St. Hippolytus) and thus of the cathedral go back to around the year 790. During this time the brothers Adalbert and Otakar are said to have founded a daughter monastery in St. Pölten from the Tegernsee monastery they founded . The Benedictines also brought the Hippolyte relics to St. Pölten, from which the current name of the city is derived. Since 828 the monastery was owned by the Diocese of Passau . The missionary work that started there can be assumed to have been in the Great Moravian Empire , the church on Pöltenberg in Znojmo is said to have been founded from there.
When the Magyars invaded around 907, the monastery was almost completely destroyed. It was only rebuilt after the battle on Lechfeld in 955. The monastery is first mentioned in writing in 976 in a document from Emperor Otto II for Bishop Pilgrim von Passau . Under Bishop Altmann von Passau , it was converted into an Augustinian canon monastery in 1081 and from then on bore the patronage of St. Peter , in the 12th century the main altar became St. Consecrated to Stephen and Hippolytus.
Today's church
Around 1150 a three-aisled , transeptless church with twin towers was built as a westwork , but was extensively rebuilt between 1267 and 1280 after a fire. This church was consecrated by Bishop Gebhard in 1228 in honor of the Assumption of Mary (Assumption of Mary) , the patronage that the cathedral still maintains today. In 1512 there was a devastating fire throughout the city, after which the north tower was removed and not rebuilt.
The current image of the cathedral was created in the 17th century. After a fire in 1621, today's diocese building was designed in early baroque style. The last high point in the history of the building was the then monastery under provost Johann Michel Führer . He was enthusiastic about the high baroque splendor of neighboring residences such as the Melk Abbey and found a like-minded partner in Jakob Prandtauer, who lived in the city . The planned renovation was to add a second floor to the diocese building and the exterior view of the church was to be a three-tower section (similar to the Seitenstetten Abbey ) with the existing tower as the center. This plan could not be fully implemented, mainly because Führer took over financially and the pen was almost bankrupt when he resigned in 1739. In addition to the generous redesign of the entire interior, mainly by Daniel Gran and Bartolomeo Altomonte , only the tower was raised and given a new dome.
In 1784 the monastery was closed by Joseph II . On January 28th the following year, due to Pius VI. enacted papal bull Inter plurimas the building of the bishopric ( cathedral ) of the newly founded diocese of St. Pölten.
In 1873 the pastor Josef Kinzl founded the Catholic Patriotic People's and Press Association for Lower Austria , which published the St. Pöltner Bote. From this, the NÖN and the Lower Austrian press house developed.
architecture
“As little as the viewer expects the outside of this cathedral, the entrance into it is surprising, since objects come up from all sides which deserve special attention, but which at the same time probably arouse the wish that more light should illuminate these masterpieces would like that something sparingly illuminates the temple of God. "
The outer
The layout of the outer facade still largely consists of the building built around 1150. Originally built as a three-nave , transeptless church with twin towers as a westwork , it was extensively rebuilt in late Romanesque style after a fire between 1267 and 1280 .
The cathedral church is directly connected to the diocese building, the cloister is attached to the north side of the church . Despite the extensive preservation of the late Romanesque structure, the building is characterized by the mighty south tower with its double onion hood and the dome lanterns on the south aisle. The apse and the south facade are preserved from the late Romanesque building .
With the exception of the two basement floors of the south tower, both towers have a corner cuboid. On the west facade is the main portal of the cathedral with skylights and a gable top . There is a statue of a saint on both sides of the portal at the level of the second floor: Hippolytus on the left , Augustine on the right .
The inner
The interior of the church was given a Baroque style by Jakob Prandtauer , Joseph Munggenast , Daniel Gran and Bartolomeo Altomonte . The ceiling frescoes were partly designed by Thomas Friedrich Gedon . In front of the steps of the chancel is the exit to the bishop's crypt, in which u. a. the diocesan or auxiliary bishops of St. Pölten Memelauer , Žak , Krenn and Fasching are buried.
organ
The organ is a work of the Swiss company Metzler Orgelbau from 1973 with 36 stops on 3 manuals and pedal . The prospectus comes from the original organ built by Johann Ignaz Egedacher in 1722.
Bells
The cathedral has an almost complete baroque bell, cast in 1696 by Mathias Prininger from Krems . Only bell 3 was lost due to the bell deliveries in the First World War and had to be re-purchased after both world wars.
| No. | Surname | Nominal |
Weight (kg) |
Diameter (cm) |
Casting year | Caster |
| 1 | Immaculate bell | a 0 +2 | 4,318 | 189 | 1696 | Mathias Prininger |
| 2 | Twelve | c sharp 1 +0 | 2.223 | 151 | 1696 | Mathias Prininger |
| 3 | Bishop jubilee bell | e 1 +2 | 1,066 | 120 | 1955 | Josef Pfundner |
| 4th | Quarter or poor soul bell | a 1 +0 | 516 | 93 | 1696 | Mathias Prininger |
| 5 | Dining bell | cis² + 0 | 264 | 73 | 1696 | Mathias Prininger |
There are also two other small bells that are not part of the actual ringing.
literature
- Wolfgang Huber: St. Pölten. Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary. Small art guide No. 2752. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2012.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Baroque town of St. Pölten . Local history book series, Volume I. “Joy at Home” -Publisher, after 1945
- ↑ a b c d Wilhelm Zotti : Church art in St. Pölten . 1979.
- ↑ a b c Peter Scherrer : St. Pölten, state capital with Roman roots . 1998, ISBN 3-900305-26-9 . Chapter St. Hippolytus: The oldest monastery in Lower Austria , pp. 26–27
- ↑ Thomas Karl u. a .: The art monuments of the city of St. Pölten and its incorporated localities . 1999, ISBN 3-85028-310-0 . Chapter Cathedral Church of the Assumption - History , pp. 5–6.
- ^ Herwig Ebner: Patronage card. In: Romanesque Art in Austria. Krems 1964, p. 290; quoted n. H. Flachenecker: Patronage research in Germany. In: Concilium Medii Aevi 2, 1999, p. 153, cma.gbv.de (PDF; 63 kB; p. 9)
- ↑ Flachenecker: Patronage research in Germany , p. 153 - Flachenecker gives St. Pölten as a prototype example of frequent patronage changes in the high Middle Ages
- ↑ The cathedral on geschichte.landesmuseum.net
- ^ Siegfried Nasko, Thomas Karl: City Guide St. Pölten . 1993, chapter The St. Pölten Cathedral , pp. 52–61
- ^ History of the diocese of St. Pölten
- ↑ Representation of the Archduchy of Austria under the Ens; First volume, first issue; District Upper Vienna Woods . Vienna, 1835, pp. 258-265 at Google Books
- ↑ Thomas Karl u. a .: The art monuments of the city of St. Pölten and its incorporated localities . 1999, ISBN 3-85028-310-0 . Chapter Cathedral Church of the Assumption - building description, exterior , p. 8-10.
- ↑ Thomas Karl u. a .: The art monuments of the city of St. Pölten and its incorporated localities . 1999, ISBN 3-85028-310-0 . Chapter Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary - building description, interior , pp. 10–15.
- ^ Jörg Wernisch: Bell customer of Austria. Journal-Verlag, Lienz 2006.
Coordinates: 48 ° 12 '18.3 " N , 15 ° 37' 37.9" E