St. Martin Basilica (Weingarten)

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Aerial view of the monastery complex in Weingarten with the Basilica of St. Martin, 2020
South view
Access area to the basilica
Interior of the basilica
Choir fresco
Crucifixion altar in the north transept

The minor basilica St. Martin and Oswald is the former collegiate church of the imperial abbey in Weingarten in the Baden-Württemberg district of Ravensburg , consecrated in 1724 . Architecturally, the church is not a basilica , but a baroque gallery .

history

The foundation stone of the baroque church was laid on August 22, 1715. It replaced the Romanesque church of the Benedictine abbey . The new building was consecrated to the church patrons St. Martin and St. Oswald by the Bishop of Constance Johann Franz Schenk von Stauffenberg on September 10, 1724 during the term of office of Abbot Sebastian Hyller .

With a dome height of 67 meters and a length of 102 meters, the church is the largest baroque church building in Germany and north of the Alps. Abbot Hyller, after whom a street in Weingarten is named, deliberately chose almost half the size of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for the new church . The builder was Joseph Schmuzer , the choir stalls were carved from 1720 to 1724 by the sculptor and plasterer Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer , he also made the stucco .

Since the abbey of the Benedictine Empire was dissolved in 1803, the church has served as the parish church of the Catholic parish of St. Martin.

From 1922 to 2010 it was also the monastery church of the repopulated Benedictine abbey Weingarten.

On the occasion of the 900th anniversary of the foundation of the Benedictine Abbey by the Guelphs, the church was opened in 1956 by Pope Pius XII. raised to the minor basilica .

The Holy Blood relic kept in the church is the subject of religious veneration throughout Upper Swabia . It is the focus of one of the largest equestrian processions in Europe, the annual blood kick .

Furnishing

Frescoes

The ceiling frescoes were carried out by Cosmas Damian Asam between 1718 and 1720 and represent a high point of Baroque church painting. The frescoes create a colorful contrast to the otherwise predominantly white church interior.

Guelph tomb and frescos

The monastery was donated by Welf IV in 1056 as a burial place. In the previous Romanesque church, the Guelph graves were in the donor and Holy Blood chapel in the westwork between the portals. In the new baroque building in 1724, the remains of nine members of the Guelph family were reburied in a new crypt in the north transept, where the crucifixion altar is also located, which originally housed the Holy Blood relic in the tabernacle .

King George V of Hanover visited the site of his ancestors in 1852, which was no longer in a dignified state. He had the tomb restored in the neo-Romanesque style in 1859/60 with the help of the Munich court architect Leo von Klenze . A stone slab with the inscription "Welfengruft" and the coat of arms of George V above was inserted into the balustrade , which was erected in 1724 by Kaspar Thumb in front of the crucifixion altar . On the right and left are reliefs with his heraldic animals, the unicorn and the lion. The motto “Suscipere et Finire” (start and finish) is on the coat of arms. Nine members of the Guelph family, from which the British royal family descended, rest in a granite marble sarcophagus by the Munich sculptor Sickinger in the crypt, which is normally not accessible to visitors to the church.

The Guelphs are also immortalized in the frescoes that Cosmas Damian Asam created between 1718 and 1720. In doing so, he resorted to illustrations from the Weingartener Stifterbüchlein . They are located in the two transverse barrels of the Holy Blood fresco, the first on the ceiling from the entrance. In the southern transverse buoy are shown from west to east:

In the northern transverse buoy are shown from west to east:

  • Heinrich (son of Rudolf) and Welf III.
  • Heinrich (Count von Altdorf), Welf I. and Ata von Hohenwart
  • Rudolf and Welf II.

Welf VI. and his son Welf VII. are not buried in Weingarten, but in the Steingaden Monastery, which they founded, in the monastery church of St. Johannes Baptist , also known as the "Welfenmünster".

In the cloister courtyard to the north of the basilica, a copy of the Brunswick Lion has been a reminder since 1999 that Altdorf / Weingarten was the ancestral home of the Welfs from the 9th to 11th centuries.

  • Guelph crypt in the north transept

  • Lion relief at the Guelph Crypt

  • George V's coat of arms on the Welf Crypt

  • Unicorn relief at the Guelph Crypt

  • Wulfhild and Sophia

  • Welf V., Heinrich the Black and Welf VI.

  • Welf IV and Judith of Flanders

  • Welf III. and Heinrich

  • Heinrich (Count von Altdorf), Welf I. and Ata von Hohenwart

  • Rudolf and Welf II.

  • Copy of the Brunswick lion in the cloister courtyard

Organs

The main organ of the basilica by Joseph Gabler is considered to be one of the most important preserved baroque organs in southern Germany.

Bells

The ringing of the St. Martin Basilica consists of eight bells . The Hosanna is the oldest and, at 6,190 kg, the largest bell in the basilica and in the Rottenburg-Stuttgart diocese . It was cast in 1490 by the Stuttgart bell founder Hans Ernst . A crack was repaired by the Lachenmeyer bell welding shop in 1968/1990 . The bell is provided with rich relief decoration, which for the first time refers to the blood step. The bell is rarely rung, but can be heard regularly to look up the full hours. In 1993, the Bachert bell foundry cast the 4,400 kg Gloriosa as a new festival bell and hung it in the Hosanna tower to relieve it . The other six bells hang on the other tower and date from 1957, 1748, 1747, 1626 and 1519. Sorted by pitch, the ringing sounds approximately in the chimes a 0 , h 0 , d 1 , e 1 , f sharp 1 , g sharp 1 , h 1 and d 2 .

See also

literature

  • Gebhard Spahr : The Weingarten basilica. A baroque jewel in Upper Swabia . (Lake Constance Library; Vol. 19). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1974, ISBN 3-7995-4007-5
  • Nikolaus Dorner, Jürgen Kaiser: Basilica and Weingarten Monastery. Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2006, ISBN 3-7954-4314-8
  • Beata Hertlein, Dörthe Jakobs: The dome of the basilica in Weingarten. Conservation and restoration . State Office for Monument Preservation, Esslingen 2006 (leaflet)
  • Beata Hertlein, Dörthe Jakobs: The dome of the basilica in Weingarten. Conservation and restoration . In: Monument Preservation in Baden-Württemberg , 36th year 2007, issue 2, pp. 77–81 ( PDF )
  • Dörthe Jakobs (Red.): The dome of the basilica in Weingarten. An interdisciplinary project on conservation and restoration . Theiss, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-8062-2135-0
  • Ekkehard Schmid: Basilica and Weingarten Monastery . 38th, completely revised edition of the art guide No. 528 from 1950. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-7954-4314-6

Web links

Commons : Basilica of St. Martin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ^ Frescoes in St. Martin's Basilica in Weingarten at wikimedia.org
  2. ^ A b Otto Beck / Ingeborg Maria Buck: Baroque basilica Sankt Martin and Sankt Oswald Weingarten. Lindenberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-931820-08-4 , pp. 6–8, pp. 23f and 42f
  3. ↑ Information board at the Guelph Crypt
  4. ^ Sigrid Thurm:  Ernst, Hans. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 628 ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ [1]

Coordinates: 47 ° 48 ′ 33.2 "  N , 9 ° 38 ′ 41.2"  E