Catholic parish church Zwettl-Lower Austria

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Catholic parish church of the Assumption in Zwettl-Niederösterreich

The Roman Catholic parish church Zwettl-Niederösterreich in the Lower Austrian town of Zwettl is located at the beginning of the Landstrasse in the area of ​​the former lower gate of the medieval city wall. It was built as a late Romanesque pillar basilica and later changed and expanded several times. At the end of the 15th century it was elevated to the status of a parish church. The parish church of the Assumption of Mary belongs to the Deanery Zwettl in the diocese of St. Pölten . The church is a listed building .

history

Church and lower gate on an engraving by Georg Matthäus Vischer (1672)

It is very likely that the Zwettl parish has existed since the first third of the 12th century. The first parish church later served Provost Church , which is outside the medieval village on a steep elevation above the Kamp shore. The church in the city is mentioned for the first time in 1280 as ecclesia inferiora ('lower church') and named in a document from 1352 as the Frauenkirche . The exact construction time is not known. Presumably it was built in the first half of the 13th century as a pillar basilica with three naves in the late Romanesque style. At the same time as the provost's office was founded at the end of the 15th century, the parish function was transferred here. The originally flat-roofed church was vaulted between 1483 and 1490 and was expanded to include a late Gothic choir and side chapels . In 1681 the side aisles were raised with galleries and new roofing under a uniform gable roof . The interior was baroque in 1740 . The medieval tower was rebuilt and increased in 1854-1856.

Exterior

According to the historian Adalbert Klaar , the tower presented on the west side originally served as the inner fortification tower of the lower gate of the city wall. 1854-1856 it was increased by Anton Gareis and rebuilt in the style of Romanesque historicism . Today's four-story tower has twin windows and three-part arched windows with terracotta decor and four corner pinnacles . It is crowned by a pointed gable helmet. The nave is simple and unstructured. Of its Romanesque core, seven funnel windows are still visible from the attic, among other things. The chapels protruding on the sides of the nave were built in 1490, as was the southern sacristy. The sacristy to the north is an extension from 1682. At the western end there is a late Gothic pointed arch portal with a funnel embrasure below the tower. On the north and south sides, the church is accessible through a pointed arched side portal. The late Gothic choir has a five-eighth closing . It is the same height and width as the nave and is crowned by a squat octagonal tower top with a pyramid helmet. A baroque sandstone relief on the outside shows a representation of Christ with Mary Magdalene . The work can probably be dated to the first half of the 18th century.

Interior

The nave, originally a three-aisled, late Romanesque basilica, received its four-bay vaulting in 1483–1490: in the central nave, ribbed vaults on ring consoles; In the lower aisles, the two eastern bays are vaulted with cross ribs, the two western bays and the side chapels are vaulted with star ribs. The main nave is connected to the side aisles by wide pointed arches on beveled pillars. The three-bay west gallery is vaulted with star ribs in the middle yoke and cross-rib vaulted in the side yokes. In the southwest corner, a rectangular barred portal leads to the staircase. The groin vaulted galleries of the side aisles were built in 1680. They have semicircular openings to the ship. The one-bay choir is slightly raised and vaulted by cross ribs. On the vault caps, on the choir wall, on the front wall of the triumphal arch and in the southeast side aisle there is rococo stucco with rich ornamentation and symbolic representations, which was created by Johann Michael Flor , a well-known plasterer of the Wessobrunn school , in 1744. The portals to the barrel-vaulted sacristies are crowned with stucco marble. Above it can be seen oval canvas pictures of Mary and Christ the King , which are held by putti.

Facility

The late baroque high altar occupies the entire end of the choir. It has a column structure made of stucco marble, a late Baroque altarpiece of the Assumption , a sarcophagus-shaped altar table and a tabernacle flanked by figures of angels . Above the two side altars there is a baroque altarpiece by Johann Ignaz Zimbal from 1764: on the left the miracle of the snake of St. Paul in Malta ; on the right the liberation of St. Peter .

The church has several figures, crosses and portraits from different periods of art history. These include, among other things, a Heart of Jesus by Thomas Demez from 1900, a portrait of the Virgin and Child, a remarkable Gothic half-figure of St. Josef, a sandstone figure of the Man of Sorrows created in the first half of the 15th century , a crucifix from the end of the 19th century, a figure of Christ on the scourge column from the beginning of the 18th century and a fragment of a Romanesque frieze with the depictions of the Lamb of God , Blessing Hand God and Holy Spirit in the south porch.

Additional features include an oval, hunched holy water basin on a baluster column from 1644, an octagonal baptismal font (17th century?), The lid of which is carved with a group of baptisms of Christ and was created in the fourth quarter of the 19th century.

literature

Web links

Coordinates: 48 ° 36 '12 "  N , 15 ° 10' 5.6"  E