Michaelskapelle (Kiedrich)
The Michaelskapelle is a Gothic church building from the first half of the 15th century in the Hessian town of Kiedrich in the Rheingau . It is located in the church district of the Catholic parish church of St. Valentinus and Dionysius and is considered the "architecturally richest and artistically noble example of this type of building in today's state of Hesse" ( Dehio ).
history
The construction began after 1434, the execution is attributed to the Mainz cathedral master craftsman Peter Eseler and his son Nikolaus Eseler the elder . For their part, they were probably close to the Frankfurt city and cathedral builder Madern Gerthener and his school, but also processed independent influences from Franconia , where Nikolaus Eseler had previously worked.
After ten years of construction, the building was completed in 1444 and consecrated in 1445. The ground floor served as a charnel house , the upper floor with the outer pulpit as a healing chapel for the presentation of the relics of St. Valentine . As was the case with the parish church and the town of Kiedrich, there was largely no destruction during the Reformation and subsequent wars . Restorations were carried out in 1845–47, 1851–58, 1910/11 and 1974/75.
architecture
Exterior
The building is a two-storey rectangular building with three bays , which is closed by a steep, slate-covered gable roof , also with two storeys. In the south it is attached directly to the wall of the church district . A surrounding coffee cornice separates the ground floor and first floor . The building material is plastered quarry stone , the architectural parts and the mostly visible corner blocks are made of red Main sandstone . Only pointed arch portals on the north east and west sides that can be closed with grids are used to access the Karner , while portals on the south east and west sides are similar to the upper floors via simple stairs, but with door leaves.
The north facade is designed as a show side: On the upper floor it shows three three-part pointed arch windows with fish bubble tracery above simple, barred round arched windows on the ground floor; the horizontal arrangement is made by buttresses placed at the corners and between the windows , which in turn are richly decorated with canopy niches and pinnacles . Between the two central buttresses, below the window, there is an outer pulpit with tracery parapet . The roofing is done by means of a barrel vault with underlaid cross ribs ; The front end is formed by a keel arch decorated with crabs and quatrefoil on the front side , which rests on consoles designed as angel figures .
Two hexagonal turrets with coupled pointed arched windows and pointed helmets are attached to the roof at the northeast and southeast corners. The east wall in between is decorated at the level of the first floor with an oriel architecture reminiscent of the Nuremberg Chörlein . The floor plan of the externally visible part is described by 5/8, of which 3/8 are architecturally designed with tracery parapets, windows with fish bubble tracery, set pinnacles and rich, crowning eyelashes . The whole thing is based on a crab-adorned, polygonal console, the builder evidently translating Renaissance forms already known to him into those of the Gothic .
A narrow stair tower is attached to the western gable wall of the building, the square floor plan of which merges into the octagon at the level of the first floor. The tower ground floor, open to the west with a pointed arch, has a cross vault with a hanging keystone . The top of the tower is an openwork lantern in the richest design language of the construction period: The lower structure shows simple pointed arched windows with nuns' heads , in between square columns on which animal figures, reminiscent of gargoyles , but functionless crouch; the windows crown finials , the pillar pinnacles, the pointed helmet behind with finial crabs, the fillings of which are formed by tripods and fish-bubble tracery.
Interior
The Karner is spanned by a two-aisled barrel vault, the chapel on the upper floor by a single-aisled mesh vault with three transverse bays . The latter rests on capitalless , bundled wall services . The apexes of the ribs with blue and gold taken from them originates predominantly floral painting in the vault cells. This thematizes medicinal herbs based on the model of medieval herbaria .
From the entire wall surface of the chapel, a surrounding stone bench is cut out only at the door openings and on the east side. Door openings next to the entrances already described in the exterior architecture are located in the north wall, with a pointed arch , to the outer pulpit , and in the west wall, with a round arch , to the stair tower .
Up to about the height of the doors, the wall surfaces show in the form of illusionistic painting a wraparound carpet, apparently attached to a rod at the upper edge. Furthermore, a heavily restored, painted crucifixion group can be seen on the west wall ; on the north east wall the Secco painting of a Gregory mass . Underneath there is a built-in wall cupboard within a garment with stiffeners and battlements . The original, wrought iron door leaf should also be emphasized.
The chapel opens like a portal to the little choir in the east wall: to the side there are three-part pinnacle structures, almost wall-high in the center, each with two canopy niches with figural decorations, in between spans a keel arch with tracery on the inside and crabs on the outside the top is decorated with a crowning finial . In addition, individual architectural elements are set off from one another in a strong polychromy , predominantly characterized by blue and gold . The setting, as well as the restoration of the rest of the painting and the figurative decorations, can be attributed to the work of H. Steinlein in 1912.
Furnishing
In the Karner there is a grave of Christ from around 1500 , a Christ carrying a cross from the end of the 16th century, a Christ on the Mount of Olives from the 19th century and numerous grave slabs from the Middle Ages . Particularly noteworthy in the chapel is the life-size double crescent Madonna carried by seven angel heads . It was probably created around 1520 by Peter Schro , a student of Hans Backoffens . The seven-armed chandelier, which is regarded as a masterpiece of late Gothic blacksmithing and serves as an attachment, was built in 1512; the performing artist was C. Spengeler .
The stained glazing of the chapel with braided ribbon ornamentation was redone during the restorations of the 19th century after minor remains of the original glazing were found. The stained glass windows of the chörlein , on the other hand, are a completely new creation by JBC de Bethune from Gent , who also re-glazed the parish church in the 1870s .
literature
- Folkhard Cremer (edit.): Handbook of German Art Monuments. Hesse II. Darmstadt administrative district. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03117-3 , p. 507 and 508
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 2 '27.2 " N , 8 ° 5' 6.3" E