Church of St. Maria Lantsch / Lenz
The old parish church of St. Maria stands west of the village of Lantsch / Lenz in the canton of Graubünden in Switzerland.
history
The church is first mentioned in 831: est ibi ecclesia Stae Mariae caum decima de ipse villa. The walls of the nave date from this time. This first system, a flat-roofed nave with a semicircular apse , was supplemented by the Romanesque tower in the 12th century. In 1504/05 the choir was rebuilt, the nave vaulted and windows installed. According to an inscription behind the high altar, the builder was the famous Peter von Bamberg. On October 7, 1509, the church was consecrated anew with three altars by the Chur Auxiliary Bishop Stephan Tschuggeli. A few years later the sacristy and ossuary were built .
A first renovation took place in 1626 and after 1663 the church was only used as a burial church. Impending disintegration was prevented by an exterior renovation from 1909 to 1911. During the subsequent interior renovation in 1913 and 1914, the gallery and pulpit that had been built in earlier were removed and the wall paintings from the 14th century were restored by Christian Schmidt from Zurich. During the last restoration from 1991 to 1993, the gray and white original version of the ribbed vault was restored.
building
Exterior
The church is a simple gable roof building with a gable facade to the west. In front of the entrance is the ossuary with a round arched entrance and a flat barrel vault. The polygonal choir has two pointed arched windows with fish-bladder tracery on the south side , under the round window on the choir head a mural of Christophorus can be seen on the east side , probably from the 16th century. The Romanesque tower with narrow light slits, double-arch sound windows and a slab-covered tent roof stands on the south side of the church. On its east side stands the small sacristy, which was built shortly after the choir was built.
Interior
The gray-white ribbed vault with its complicated asymmetrical structure is striking. The keystone in the east bears the maker's mark of Peter von Bamberg.
The north wall has no windows, on the south wall, in addition to the Gothic pointed arch windows, two round arched windows from the Carolingian era walled up from the outside have been preserved. The easted choir is separated from the nave by a choir arch. A building inscription under the arched window names the builder as well as the pastor Bartholomeus Malet. On the north side in the choir is the sacrament house from 1504.
Look at the choir
Reticulated vault
View of the entrance
Paintings
The paintings come from three different stages and were created in the course of the 14th century. At its beginning, the figure of Christophorus was created on the west side. The picture is ascribed to the circle of the Waltensburg master and shows the same linear surface style as can be found in the Passion cycle of the Reformed Church in Waltensburg .
To the north is a strip of pictures with a number of saints from the middle of the century. The left side was destroyed in 1505 by the installation of a window.
The three picture strips on the south wall were created towards the end of the century and show a biblical cycle with representations from the Old and New Testament. The pictures were executed al secco and are attributed to the Rhäzüns master who completed the work started by the Waltensburg master in the church of Sogn Gieri in Rhäzüns .
Christophorus
Holy ribbon
Bible cycle
Furnishing
The late Gothic winged altar, the second oldest in the canton of Graubünden, dates from 1479, as an inscription on the predella shows. The initials hh could point to Hans Huber from Feldkirch, who already carried out the paintings on the altar of Tumegl / Tomils .
In the shrine there is a Madonna in a halo, accompanied by Saints Florinus and Katharina (left) and Nikolaus von Myra and Barbara (right). When closed, the weekday page shows an annunciation scene to Mary. The painted insides of the wings show Georg with the dragon and Antonius Abbas on the right, John the Baptist and Lucius of Chur , the patron saint of the diocese of Chur, on the left .
The side altars from the late Renaissance were made around 1640. The altar on the left was donated by the Rosary Brotherhood and shows the donation of the rosary to the kneeling Saints Dominic and Catherine of Siena . The altar on the right was donated by the Brotherhood of Christ's Agony . The altar panel shows Christ on the cross and Mary Magdalene .
The crucifix was made around 1475 and comes from an unknown master.
left altarpiece
right altarpiece
left side altar
right side altar
Grave crosses
The Lantsch pastor Joseph Willimann (1919–1976) managed to have all stone or cast iron grave crosses replaced by the old wrought iron grave crosses that had mostly been kept for generations. Around 140 old crosses have been preserved. It was created between the 16th and the end of the 19th century. Stylistically about 20 are Gothic , about 50 each to the Renaissance and Baroque, and the remainder to the 19th century. There are also around eighty crosses from the 20th century. Each of the old crosses is registered and the families pledged not to sell any of them. So the cemetery today offers the image of a uniform cohesion.
poem
The Capuchin Father Alexander Lozza , the most important poet of the Rhaeto-Romanic idiom Surmiran , was inspired to write a poem by the church. The poem was set to music by the composer Ernst Bröchin in 1944 and is still one of the best-known works of Rhaeto-Romanic male choir literature. (German translation from the Heimatbuch: "Lantsch / Lenz, A mountain village then and now")
Baselgigna, semi d'art passo,
|
Little church, dream of past art,
|
literature
- Peda art guide: The churches of Lantsch / Lenz ; Ed. Catholic Parish Office Lantsch; 1997
- Ludmila Seifert, Leza Dosch: Art Guide through Graubünden , Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2008
- Erwin Poeschel : Art Monuments of the Canton of Graubünden , Volume II, Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1937
- Willy Zeller: Art and Culture in Graubünden, Haupt-Verlag, Bern 1993, p. 158
- Joseph Willimann: The grave crosses of Lantsch , NZN Buchverlag, Zurich 1979
- Lantsch / Lenz, A mountain village then and now, Ina vischnanca ier ed oz , published by the municipality of Lantsch / Lenz; 2009
- Dieter Matti: Old Pictures - Newly Interpreted, Ecclesiastical Art in the Passland , Volume 1 (Central Grisons); Desertina, Chur 2012, ISBN 978-3-85637-368-9 , pp. 19-22
Web links
Church of St. Maria on baukultur.gr.ch
Coordinates: 46 ° 40 '57.8 " N , 9 ° 33' 30.9" E ; CH1903: seven hundred and sixty-two thousand one hundred sixty-nine / 172356