City church Laufenburg

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Stadtkirche Laufenburg AG
Stadtkirche Laufenburg AG
The Laufenburg church seen from the northern, Baden side

The Stadtkirche Laufenburg is located on a north-eastern plateau of the castle hill in the old town of the Swiss part of Laufenburg . It is also the Roman Catholic parish church of Laufenburg, with the patronage of John the Baptist . The current building was probably built between 1439 and 1510, nothing is known about the previous buildings, as no excavations have taken place so far. The church is under federal monument protection.

location

The castle and the church before 1640

The church is located on a plateau on the castle hill within the city walls of Laufenburg. Since the higher castle was demolished except for the main tower, the church has become even more striking. The eastern retaining wall of the church was part of the casemate .

history

One of the first clergy in Laufenburg was probably the people priest with a helper, who is mentioned in 1248. So there must already have been a church in the city at this point in time, even if there is no documentary evidence of its construction. In the early 14th century, a second folk priest is mentioned for the parish of the Heiliggeistkirche in Klein-Laufenburg, which was then a branch of the parish church of Murg . The benefices of both churches were owned by the Säckingen monastery . Nevertheless, the two churches and the banks of the Rhine belonged to different dioceses, the left (Swiss) to the diocese of Basel , the right (Baden) to the diocese of Constance .

Building history

The origin of the first church in Laufenburg is obscure. It is most likely that the Säckingen women's monastery had a church built here before the city was founded. The patronage also points to an early establishment / foundation, because John the Baptist was a popular saint in Franconian times and accordingly he was often chosen as the patron of a church. Since no excavations or soundings have been carried out so far, nothing can be learned about one or more previous buildings from an archaeological point of view.

Not everything has been clarified about the construction of today's church either. Based on a donation made by the city council, the construction of the choir can be dated to around 1439. It is also known that the city of Baden paid two guilders for the construction of this church in 1441. The construction work probably dragged on for two generations, the building was built from the nave to the choir . A Sebastian Gisel , presumably a local, is mentioned as a foreman. The sacristy was completed in 1489, at least that date is carved in stone on it. In 1510, at the end of the construction work, the citizens asked Emperor Maximilian I to contribute to a painted choir window. The construction time of the Gothic church is therefore assumed to be from 1439 to 1510.

The old bell tower (probably taken over from the previous building) was demolished in 1588 by the two masters Hans Rosenplatt and Kaspar Simon . The new Gothic tower was built in place of the choir of the Liebfraukapelle, by the builders Stefan Wetzel , Lorenz Staller , Heinrich Mandacher and Melchior Huber . The tower suffered severe damage during the attack by Götzen's army during the Thirty Years' War in 1638 and was therefore given a new helmet as a Spanish bonnet from Fridolin Mörikofer in 1653 . The designs for this are attributed to the Fabriciarius of the Swiss Capuchin Province Probus Heine .

Building

The entire structure was built in the Gothic style and for the most part still preserved. The nave windows were later redesigned in Baroque style , and the spire is no longer original. The entire structure has an irregular, oblique-angled floor plan, which is primarily attributable to the building site on the hill. The main axes of the ship and the choir lie on one line.

Interior

The interior was partly adapted to the Baroque between 1750 and 1753, whereby the windows of the ship were also adapted. The interior was again thoroughly baroque between 1776 and 1779.

literature

  • Peter Felder: The town church of Laufenburg. 2nd revised edition (Swiss Art Guide Series 28, No. 272). Ed. Society for Swiss Art History GSK. Bern 1995, ISBN 3-85782-272-4 .

Web links

Commons : Stadtkirche Laufenburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 33 '43.1 "  N , 8 ° 3' 41.1"  E ; CH1903:  646,872  /  268 105