St. Michael (Pfronten)
St. Michael is the church in the Pfronten district of Steinach. It is a branch of the parish church of St. Nikolaus in Pfronten-Berg.
history
The Pfronten district of Steinach is mentioned for the first time in 1398. It can be assumed that there was a place of worship there even then. The patronage of St. Michael also indicates that the church is very old.
The foundations of this church could be seen in 1968 when the floor was renewed. It turned out that the building had the width of the current choir room and was almost twice as long. The nave and choir were separated by an inwardly protruding arch. An old screed was uncovered at a depth of 48 cm and the parapets of the earlier narrow windows were also 1 m lower.
construction
The church got its current appearance in 1781, when the builder Joseph Anton Geisenhof and carpenter Johann Georg Hörmann, both from Pfronten-Meilingen, widened it by 7 shoes (approx. 2.10 m) and 12 shoes (approx. 3.60 m ) has been extended. Only in 1947 was the church enlarged again to include the gallery part, with a rear entrance and the two side doors being closed.
The church has a choir that is closed on three sides after a yoke. The nave is divided into three window axes. A massive church tower rises in the northern corner of the choir. The sacristy was originally located in the basement under a ribbed vault. It was very small and narrow, so that in 1803 a more spacious sacristy was added on the opposite side.
Furnishing
The entire elegant stucco of the church was probably made by Johann Sigmund Hitzelberger . His signature can be found on a stucco vase. Of the two ceiling frescos painted by Franz Sales Stapf (1743–1810) from Pfronten in 1781, only the coronation of Mary in the choir remains . His fresco in the nave was painted over in 1897 by Karl Keller (1825–1904) from Pfronten during an Assumption of Mary . This painting was also whitewashed later, but has since been exposed again.
Even before that, in 1835, the taste of the time had changed significantly. In a letter to the regional court in Füssen , the Pfronten municipal administration reported that “the paintings in the Steinach church were spoiled, the whole thing would look rather indecent and spoiled, and considerable repairs would have to be made to the altar and the paintings.” So it came to in 1835 New construction of the main altar by the Pfronten painter and sculptor Franz Osterried (1808–1863). The altarpiece depicting St. Michael also came from him. Just one year later, Osterried also redesigned the two side altars.
The high altar of Osterried was not long in St. Michael. In 1898 the Pfronten pastor Dr. Ludwig Kohnle (1856–1930) built a neurococo high altar in Munich. He also acquired a Pietà , which was made around 1500 in Lower Franconia or on the Middle Rhine and which still bears the original version. The Pietà was placed in place of an altarpiece.
The Steinacher high altar has been replaced one more time. The Bavarian National Museum had a magnificent rococo altar that came from the St. Johannes Nepomuk Chapel in Immenstadt , which was demolished in 1899 . It was brought to Steinach on permanent loan in 1975 and now brings "great mobility" into the church space (Konrad-Schröppel) thanks to its strongly swinging contour, with exposed columns. Who made this altar cannot be completely clarified. It was probably made by a carpenter from Oberallgäu, because the altar sculpture ( Coronation of Mary by the Most Holy Trinity ) can be unequivocally assigned to the Eberhard workshop in Hindelang . In terms of structure, however, the altar is closely related to a smaller altar in Tannheim- Berg, which is attributed to the Pfronten sculptor Joseph Stapf . This feeds the assumption that the current high altar in St. Michael also has its roots in Pfronten.
The two side altars of Franz Osterried were also removed and put into storage in 1947. In their place, the Pietà, acquired in 1898, was attached to the wall on the left and St. John Nepomuk, who came to Pfronten from Immenstadt with the high altar, on the right.
A late Gothic St. Michael with a sword and - as a soul weigher - with the scales still comes from the pre-baroque old church . This figure now forms the center of the church in the high altar, of which he is the patron. In 1708 Johann Georg (Hansjörg) Stapf (1652–1731) from Pfronten rewrote the portrait.
On the walls of the choir hang two other valuable figures, on the left a St. John the Baptist and opposite him a St. Magnus . Both figures were attributed to Johann Sigmund Hitzelberger on the basis of a signature on the back of St. John. The letters "JH" here, however, identify Johann Hops as a sculptor , to whom the two works of art can be attributed in a stylistically perfect manner. In contrast, a crucifix on the south wall of the ship was actually carved by Hitzelberger.
Two very old bells should also be mentioned. A smaller one from the 1st half of the 14th century now hangs in the roof turret of St. Koloman in Pfronten-Ösch. It is the oldest church bell in the Altlandkreis Füssen . The other bell with a romanized crucifixion group is around 100 years younger.
literature
- Annemarie and Adolf Schröppel: Pfrontener churches and chapels and their pastors , in: “Encounter” (parish letters of the parish of St. Nicholas), collected articles, ed. from Heimatverein Pfronten 2002 (The well-founded articles do not provide any source information, but are essentially based on the church bills largely received from 1674 to 1825.)
- Anton H. Konrad / Annemarie and Adolf Schröppel: The Parish of Pfronten , Schwäbische Kunstdenkmale booklet 34, Weißenhorn 1986
- Gerhard Pfau: The renovation of the Church of St. Michael in Steinach from 1835 to 1837 . In: Rund um den Falkenstein, Mitteilungsblatt des Heimatverein Pfronten Volume 3 Issue 11 (2003), p. 349f
- Michael Petzet: Bavarian Art Monuments - City and District of Füssen , Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1960, p. 169
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Richard Dertsch: Das Füssener hochstiftische Urbar from 1398 , Allgäuer Heimatbücher 22nd volume 1940, p. 20
- ↑ Gerhard Pfau: The renovation of the Church of St. Michael in Steinach from 1835 to 1837
- ↑ Herbert Wittmann: Joseph Stapf (1711-1785), A Pfrontener Sculptor in Tyrol , in: Extra Verren 2011, Yearbook of the Museum Association of the Reutte District, 6th year (2011) ISSN 1992-0261 , p. 84.
- ↑ Herbert Wittmann: The work of the sculptor Johannes Hops in Ausserfern . In: Extra Verren 2010, yearbook of the Museum Association of the Reutte District, 5th year (2010) ISSN 1992-0261 , pp. 1–8
Coordinates: 47 ° 34 ′ 6 ″ N , 10 ° 33 ′ 53.6 ″ E