Riegersburg parish church
The parish church of St. Martin is a Roman Catholic church in the market town of Riegersburg in Styria . The parish church stands on a terrace a little higher above the town's Marktstrasse, at the foot of the approx. 200 m high basalt cone with the Riegersburg . The church is on the right at the beginning of the ascent to the castle.
history
The first Romanesque parish church is mentioned in a document in 1170. It was the center of a large original parish and stood at the site of today's Magdalena Chapel and the old rectory.
Reinprecht von Reichenburg, who had acquired the castle and rule of the Riegersburg in 1474 from Reinprecht V, who had remained childless, was in the service of Maximilian I in Burgundy. After returning home in 1481, he arranged for a new parish church to be built. Due to his fault, he had to stop the construction work around 1500 and died in 1505. His son and heir Hans was able to improve the economic situation of the Riegersburg with his heir, Eva von Trautson.
Church building
The late Gothic church was built in two construction phases.
- Under Reinprecht, the chancel, the nave walls with the buttresses, the southern chapel with the adjacent spiral staircase and the basement of the south tower were built. The rough basalt tuff, broken on the spot, served as building material . The two-bay choir with five-eighth closure has buttresses on the outside. The vault shows a rib network with diamond stars without emphasizing the yoke boundaries. The ribs flow into services that reach to the ground. The basalt tuff is covered in light brown inside. The choir has five two-line tracery windows with three-pass and four-pass motifs. A narrow pointed arch portal in the north wall of the first choir bay originally led to the outside. In the south wall opposite is a barbed rectangular portal, which originally led into the tower ground floor of the Gothic tower. On the south wall of the five-eighth polygon is a stone frame architecture of a session niche with a keel arch with crab trimmings and finial .
- The church was completed under his son Hans. At the richly crossed and crab-covered keel arch portal, the main entrance of the church, there is a coat of arms on the left and right. The left indicates Pastor Martin Weinträger, the right indicates the administrator and bailiff Hans Hager. The two- bay Wenceslas Chapel with a ribbed vault was connected to an existing buttress in the north of the nave as a side chapel. The keystone and the rib consoles show the coat of arms of Hans von Reichenburg with a crowned wolf and his wife Eva von Trautson with a horseshoe . The vaulting of the nave consists of a ribbed vault that rests on pillars, both made of brick. The two supporting columns of the organ gallery also show the shape of the vault. This break in style in material and form (brick) is attributed to the influence of the early Renaissance (not before 1520). In the attic, beam holes are recognizable from the original flat ceiling of the nave. The first tower was completed in the 2nd quarter of the 16th century.
The two-bay room on the north side of the choir, built in the 17th century, initially served as a sacristy. He is the weekday chapel today. In the 17th century, the Gothic tower was changed with round arched sound windows in the Renaissance form. At the same time as the second tower was built, an open vestibule was added in front of the entrance portal. The sessio in the end of the choir was broken through in the 18th century for a rectangular portal to provide access to the square sacristy that was added later. The tower's small onion helmet was repaired in 1911.
Facility
Most of the furnishings date from the 2nd half of the 18th century. The high altar from 1780/1790 is a work of early classicism with a noble, two-layer column structure and a final explosive gable , executed in marble, the wall parts are tinted gray, the columns and the entablature are brown, the figure consoles are white. The altarpiece is an oil painting coat donation of St. Martin of the painter Anton Jantl from Graz. Below the oil painting is a gilded relief with Martin's episode with the goose girl . The two gilded carved figures of Saints Peter and Paul on the outside of the altar date from the late Baroque around 1760 and, like the angels and putti of the entablature area, were taken over from an older altar. Two figures Sebastian and Johannes Baptist, late Baroque works from the 3rd quarter of the 18th century, were placed next to the high altar in 1980. The communion grid made of marble from the same period comes from the Graz Cathedral .
The pulpit, which is also early classical, with a rounded marble basket, is divided with gilded scales and decorated with leaf festons and bows bound to form medallions. The wooden acoustic roof shows symbols of the old and new covenants.
Epitaph of Erasmus Stadler
Inside the church, across from the pulpit, there is the magnificent epitaph of the lord of the castle Erasmus Stadler, who died on May 30, 1578, in the form of a marble high relief. In the center the deceased is shown kneeling in full armor, the devout gaze directed towards the crucified. Below is an antique cavalry battle against the Turks, above the risen Christ. The tomb is framed by figures who embody the cardinal virtues of faith, hope and love. The focus on Christ and the depiction of virtues personified (instead of saints) is a typical Protestant depiction from the period between the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation.
literature
- Peter Krenn : Riegersburg, Styria, main parish church St. Martin. Photos by Kurt Woisetschläger , Austria's Christian Art Sites No. 124, Church Guide, Verlag St. Peter, Salzburg 1980.
- Norbert Allmer: Parish Church of St. Martin in Riegersburg. Christian Art Places in Austria No. 485, Church Guide, Verlag St. Peter, Salzburg 2008.
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 0 '4.4 " N , 15 ° 56' 4.1" E