Stephanskirche (Simmern)
The Protestant St. Stephen's Church is a late Gothic hall church in Simmern / Hunsrück in the Rhein-Hunsrück district in Rhineland-Palatinate . It belongs to the evangelical parish of Simmern in the parish of Simmern-Trarbach of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland and is known for its numerous grave monuments of the dukes of Palatinate-Simmern , which are among the most valuable sculptures on the Middle Rhine.
History and architecture
The foundation stone for the former castle church was laid in 1486 by Duke Johann I von Pfalz-Simmern , on whose death in 1506 the building was apparently largely completed. The church is a large three-aisled hall church in the character of the Bavarian buildings of the time, which is equipped with a single-nave choir with a five- eighth end. On the north side the choir is flanked by the tower and the sacristy , on the south side by the ducal burial chapel. The current appearance of the tower comes from a renovation in 1716 and is determined by an octagonal bell storey with a voluminous dome . In 1689 the dome and the roof of the church were burned when the city was destroyed. The Simultaneum was introduced in 1689 and subsequently the choir and church were separated by a wall (until 1842). The western vestibule is modern. Large, transversely divided tracery windows are arranged on the outer walls of the nave and choir. On the ship, the buttresses are drawn inwards; only narrow, pilaster-like strips structure the wall on the outside.
The interior is well proportioned and emphasized lengthways. The central nave is visually separated from the narrow aisles by strong octagonal pillars. The choir is as wide as the central nave, but raised by a few steps. Star vaults on partly figurative consoles complete the interior. At the end of the choir, a tracery rosette with a figure of Stephen in the middle is inserted into the star figure of the ribs, which is similar to the rosette in the choir of the castle church in Meisenheim , but is much more simply executed. The grave chapel on the south aisle also closes on three sides with a star vault with the Palatine coat of arms.
In the west yoke of the nave there is a gallery with vaults underneath that goes through all three aisles, the parapet of which is provided with panels decorated with fish-bubble tracery and two angels holding coats of arms. The room setting from the late Gothic period in white and yellow with contrasting keystones and consoles was restored during the last restoration in 1968. In the north aisle there is a wooden gallery with a tracery adorned parapet from around 1845; the corresponding southern gallery was removed in 1968.
Furnishing
The pulpit is from the Neo-Gothic period. The organ was originally the work of the organ builder Brothers Stumm from 1782. It was rebuilt in 1935 by GF Steinmeyer & Co. and today, after a restoration by Rainer Müller in 2009, it has 27 stops on two manuals and a pedal . In the choir hangs the octagonal death shield of Duke Johann II with the year 1557 and the coat of arms of Pfalz-Simmern.
Funerary monuments
The numerous, artistically valuable grave monuments are in the burial chapel (St. Anna Chapel), which adjoins the south aisle to the east. In a very small space they illustrate the stylistic change from the mature Renaissance epitaph to the form-rich tomb of Mannerism .
- The tomb for Duke Johann I († 1509) is the only work signed (with Jacob 1522 ) by the sculptor Jacob Kerre, who also created the Greiffenclau epitaph in Trier Cathedral . It shows a powerful figure standing on a lion, turned slightly towards the altar and crowned with coats of arms and putti .
- The tomb for Johanna, née Countess von Nassau-Saarbrücken († 1521), the wife of Johann I, was not erected until 1554. It was previously ascribed to the master von Simmern and is now considered an early work by Johann von Trarbach . The aptly depicted portrait represents an old woman in a slightly idealized period costume, who turns towards the altar and stands in a round arched niche; the framing aedicule is adorned with delicate tendril ornaments.
- The double tomb for Duke Johann II († 1557) and his wife Beatrix von Baden († 1535) was also earlier attributed to the master of Simmern, now Johann von Trarbach, and was begun during the duke's lifetime. The free-plastic portrait figures are standing in prayer under a round arch resting on marble columns and decorated with coats of arms. The essay shows inscription panels and crowning coats of arms, in the base there are inscription panels with rich scrollwork frames.
- The half-length epitaph for Maria Jacobäa von Öttingen († 1598) was started by Johann von Trarbach soon after the death of Duke Johann II, whose second wife was Jacobäa.
- The double tomb for Duke Reichard († 1598) and his first wife Juliane Countess zu Wied († 1575) is a late work by Johann von Trarbach, which began soon after 1575, but was not yet completed in 1582. The magnificent, over 8 m high structure was originally intended to be on the north wall of the choir. Georg Dehio judged: “The art of the master, who resides in Simmern as a court sculptor and is also valued in other princely houses, is less advantageous here than, for example, in Meisenheim and Öhringen , it is by its nature small art and can only be added to a large scale, not to do justice to the motives through inner grandeur. The portrait statues are little more than costume dolls; Of course, the ornamentation is excellent. ”Of the relief images on the plinth and top, only the three made of tuff stone come from Johann von Trarbach, the remaining seven were created by the Trier sculptor Hans Ruprecht Hoffmann , whose cooperation with a warning letter from Duke Reichard to the council of the City of Trier from 1582 is attested.
- The tomb for Emilia von Württemberg († 1589), Duke Reichard's second wife, originally stood in the choir and was later smashed. In 1969/1970 it was reassembled from the preserved fragments (with the exception of the missing head of the figure).
On the wall next to the arched opening of the burial chapel is the epitaph for the Countess Palatine Alberta, with a portrayal of the head portrait of the princess who died at the age of 13 in the entablature, which was created in 1553 by Johann von Trarbach. An inscription epitaph for Margarethe Deung and her daughters from 1581 by Johann von Trarbach with a rich scroll frame can be found under the west gallery. Further inscription epitaphs, all created by Johann von Trarbach and his workshop, can be found on both choir walls. In the tower are the broken tin sarcophagi of the last Simmern princely couple Ludwig Heinrich († 1674) and Maria von Oranien († 1688) with rich decorations (lion masks, fruit hangings and coats of arms).
literature
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments . Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland. Special edition for the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1985, pp. 958–960.
- Karl Wagner: Simmern. History of the rulers and the city. Simmern 1930.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information about the organ on orgbase.nl. Retrieved March 1, 2019 .
Coordinates: 49 ° 59 ′ 5.6 " N , 7 ° 31 ′ 23.2" E