Mariahilf Chapel (Eichstätt)

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The Mariahilf Chapel on Westenstrasse
Facade detail

The Mariahilf Chapel in the western suburb of the episcopal town of Eichstätt is a baroque sacred building that served as a craftsmen and pilgrimage chapel .

Building history

The chapel was donated in the 15th century by the Eichstätter clothmakers , who pursued their then flourishing trade, especially in the western suburbs; At times around 800 squires were employed in the city. In 1453, Bishop Johann III. von Eych gave the citizens Hermann Kalmünzer and Willibald Lederer permission to build a Liebfrauenkapelle. The consecration took place in 1457. It was a pilgrimage chapel of the water chapel type ; the water, which rises in the spring above the chapel, was partly passed openly through the chapel and reappeared in a fountain on the facade, which was known as the “healing spring”. The high altar was also decorated with a pilgrimage picture, a wooden, gilded statue of the Virgin Mary. Benefice and the beneficiary's house to the right of the chapel were donated in 1500.

During the Thirty Years War , the chapel was burned down by the Swedes in the great city fire of 1634. During the reconstruction under Bishop Marquard II. Schenk von Castell , a new nave was added to the Gothic choir; in the west a church tower was built in front of the nave, on the basement of which the salvation well was probably attached. The inauguration took place on December 31, 1656.

In 1744 the ribs of the Gothic choir were chopped off, and the entire interior was given a baroque appearance with banded stucco , with narrow pilasters with foliage capitals and ceiling frescoes . Since then, the painted coat of arms of the prince-bishop's chief stable master Marquard Graf Schenk von Castell, who helped finance the redesign of 1744, has been on the choir arch. With the baroque transformation, there was a change in cult: the “Our Lady” chapel became a Mariahilf chapel. After the west tower was demolished, the facade was given its current appearance in 1784. In 1858 the choir was historicized by removing the stucco and re-baroque in 1942/43 by imitating the earlier stucco.

An exterior restoration took place in 1983 and an extensive interior restoration in 1992/93.

Building description

It is a small hall with an east-west orientation. The flat-roofed nave has a basket-arched baroque window on each side near the side altar. The retracted, two-bay Gothic choir in the east has a five-eighth end with pointed arched windows. The western front is divided into three fields by pilasters , with the two outer fields each having a basket-arched window. An open staircase leads to a pointed arch portal. The wooden roof turret above the facade is closed off by a canopy . The sacristy is located on the south side of the choir . In the west of the church there is a gallery for the organ .

Furnishing

Baroque interior
Longhouse ceiling fresco by Johann Michael Franz

The clothier trade can only be carried out if there is a corresponding river; accordingly, the water in the chapel is also a theme. In addition to the course of the spring in the nave floor, which has been completely blocked since 1969 at the latest, the central ceiling fresco, which was created by the Eichstätter court painter Johann Michael Franz in 1744 , is dedicated to water: it shows a water-donating mussel shell and a terrace with the sick and those seeking help under a Mariahilf miraculous image typical pilgrimage situation of a water chapel again. Reference may also be made to the hospital formerly opposite the chapel, founded by Euchar Schenk von Castell. The four corner medallions in green grisaille take up themes from the hymn “ Ave maris stella ”. The choir fresco, which was painted over during the redesign in 1942, was uncovered again in 1993; it is only preserved in fragments. The stained glass windows of the choir were built in the 19th century.

The stucco in the choir and on the curved organ gallery parapet was reconstructed in 1942/43. In 1942, today's “rich, broken open-moved rococo altar around 1760” was brought here from the broken parish church of Mühlhausen near Neustadt an der Donau . The side altars from around 1656 were redesigned in 1744 and provided with new altarpieces depicting St. Showing Anthony of Padua and on the left a Holy Family . In the meantime replaced by figures, the panel paintings were returned after restoration measures in 1994. The "above-average quality of the cross" dates from 1779. The carved cheeks of the lay chairs date from the Baroque period (around 1710/20). A group of Mounts of Olives (without apostles) on the right wall of the nave consists of Christ as a “good rococo figure” and an older angel figure with the chalice. The organ was built by Joseph Bittner in 1887 .

Above the portal there is a half-figure of the Madonna made of Jurassic limestone, which is attributed to the Eichstätter baroque sculptor Christian Handschuher and whose design is based on the miraculous image of the main altar. The well basin walled in underneath, a mussel shell, probably comes from the original fountain of grace on the tower. The Madonna on the right staircase behind a barred wall niche is a Gothic stone figure (14th century).

Others

Kapellbuck idyll with the St. Walburg Abbey
  • Behind the chapel is the Kapellbuck with a picturesque ensemble of houses at the source pond of the Kapellenbach and on this itself. The numerous trout are fished there on Maundy Thursday every year.
  • In front of the chapel there is a cast-iron wall fountain below the pedestal of the external portal staircase, built in its current form in 1869 by the city of Eichstätt and restored shortly after 1969.

literature

  • Wilhelm Schmitz: The Mariahilfkapelle in the west in Eichstätt (Middle Franconia) . In: Calendar for Catholic Christians to the year 1901 . Sulzbach 1901, p. 109 f.
  • Mariahilfkapelle in the west . In: Felix Mader (editor): The art monuments of Middle Franconia. I. City of Eichstätt . Munich: R. Oldenbourg-Verlag 1924 (reprint 1982), pp. 357-361.
  • Westenstrasse 68 . In: Alexander Rauch: City of Eichstätt. Ensembles, architectural monuments, archaeological site monuments . Munich and Zurich: Schnell & Steiner 1989, p. 174f.
  • Braun, Emanuel and others: The restoration of the Mariahilf Chapel in Eichstätt in 1992/93 . In: Yearbook of Bavarian Monument Preservation 47/48 (1993–1994), pp. 179–186.
  • Catholic Chapel Mariahilf . In: Georg Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments. Volume IV: Munich and Upper Bavaria . Munich and Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag 2006, p. 246.

Web links

Commons : Mariahilf-Kapelle (Eichstätt)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Mader, p. 357
  2. ↑ a b c d e Dehio, p. 246
  3. ↑ a b Braun, p. 180
  4. ↑ a b c Rauch, p. 174
  5. ↑ Braun, p. 186, footnote 3
  6. ↑ Mader, p. 357, Rauch, p. 174
  7. ↑ Mader, pp. 358f.
  8. ↑ Braun, p. 183
  9. ↑ Mader, p. 361

Coordinates: 48 ° 53 '50 "  N , 11 ° 10' 54"  E