Wessobrunn - Wessobrunn

Wessobrunn.jpg
Wessobrunn
federal stateBavaria
Residents
2.247 (2019)
height
702 m
no tourist info on Wikidata: Add tourist information
location
Location map of Bavaria
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Wessobrunn

Wessobrunn is lying in Pfaffenwinkel in Upper Bavaria and is the second smallest municipality in the district Weilheim - Schongau. The former Benedictine abbey in Wessobrunn stands for the Wessobrunn stucco school: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the artists 'and artisans' colony was the most important stucco center in all of Europe.

Map of Wessobrunn

background

The place Wessobrunn is located on a hill west of the Ammertal.

The old name of the place near the monastery was until 1853 "Geispoint" or "Gaispoint" (Gaelic-Celtic "place of law" or "fenced woad place for goats"). Later, Gaispoint was increasingly equated with the monastery name Wessobrunn, since 1853 the places Gaispoint and Haid officially bear the name Wessobrunn.

The districts of Forst and Paterzell in the south also belong to the municipality of Wessobrunn.

Wessobrunn prayer

The document, also called "Wessobrunner Lied", is named after its long-standing place of storage, it is considered the oldest surviving handwritten German-language testimony of Christian content:

The prayer booklet contains 25 devotional lines and was written around 800, at a time when almost all scripts were still in Latin, by a monk who is now unknown in the Augsburg Cathedral Writing School, probably in the language of the people; it is also the oldest preserved in Old Bavaria Document in Bavarian language.

The text contains a fragmentary creation poem and a prayer formula in prose.

The text can be read on a boulder in front of the Gasthof zur Post; the original came to the in 1803 in the course of secularization Bavarian State Library (Signature: Clm 22053, III) after Munich.

Wessobrunn stucco school

Parish church of St. Johann Baptist, detail of the stucco ceiling

The application of the stucco technique, that is the plastic design of interiors with plaster of paris ornaments, is already for the period around 7000 BC. occupied: in Egypt and Crete Brick walls were covered with plaster and the plaster was painted. The stucco comes back into fashion in Renaissance Italy (1420-1600), the heyday is the time of the European Baroque and Rococo (around 1575 to 1770).

Inspired by Italian models, the most important stucco center in Europe developed in the 17th century in the villages around the Wessobrunn monastery, to which the most important tasks not only in southern Germany, but also in France with Versailles, in Switzerland, Poland, Hungary and Russia are awarded. The skillful "plasterers", formerly also called "stucco haters", can even beat their Italian competitors out of the field.

The starting material is plaster of paris, sand and chalk, in order to make the mass smoother, quark and beer, wine or even charcoal have sometimes been added. Prefabricated and hardened models are no longer glued on, but the fresh plaster of paris is modeled on the object with hands and spatulas, with the added straw, calf hair and wire being used for fastening.

Today, Wessobrun stucco can be found in almost 3,000 churches, monasteries and castles across Europe. Under the style-defining influence of Wessobrunn, the ornamentation changes from the rich, often figuratively animated foliage in the rather heavy forms of the Baroque in the late 17th and early 18th centuries to the delicate and sharp lines of the Rococo, the hallmark is always the special elegance and lightness of the Wessobrunn work.

At times, up to 300 artists and artisans are employed in the places around Wessobrunn Monastery, a total of around 600 artists are documented. Important representatives are the artist families Schmuzer, Feuchtmayer, Finsterwalder and Gigl, the most famous artists are Johann Georg Üblhör and Johann Baptist Zimmermann with his brother, the architect brother Dominikus Zimmermann. Stucco workers, stonemasons, builders, sculptors and painters are organized in the "companies" in which the craftsmen live and work together in family groups that are independent of guilds.

The strict term "Wessobrunn stucco school" was introduced by Gustav von Bezold and Georg Hager in 1888 as a name for the style-forming group, the more general term "Wessobrunn school" is also used on various occasions with the inclusion of the other represented craftsmen (stonemasons, painters, sculptors and builders) used.

getting there

Distances (roads - km)
Weilheim12 km
Schongau22 km
Landsberg25 km
Andechs Monastery28 km
Starnberg37 km
Garmisch57 km
Bad Tölz59 km
Munich64 km
augsburg65 km
innsbruck115 km

By plane

  • The next major international airport is Munich Airport: Munich - Franz Josef Strauss (110 km, approx. A good hour's drive). From here, among others, offer Lufthansa and their partner of Star Alliance Connections to cities in Germany, Europe and worldwide. As the second largest airport in Germany, it is connected to a growing number of cities.
  • The airports in can also be reached quickly augsburg (78 km, approx. A good hour's drive) and in Austria the airport in innsbruck (113 km, approx. A good hour's drive).

By train

The nearest train station is in Weilheim, continue by bus or taxi.

In the street

Wessobrunn is a bit away from motorways or federal highways southwest of the Ammersee.

  • Coming from the east on the A96 motorway (Munich - Lindau), Symbol: ASLandsberg, on the federal road B 17 approx. 17 kilometers to Kinsau heading south (Feet) and then turn to Wessobrunn;
  • alternatively from Landsberg via the St2067 directly to Wessobrunn (approx. 27 km);

mobility

  • the RVO (Regionalverkehr Oberbayern / DB) operates the bus routes in the region;
Regionalverkehr Oberbayern GmbH, Weilheim branch; Paradeisstrasse 81, 82362 Weilheim; Tel .: 0881 92477-0; www.rvo-bus.de;

Tourist Attractions

Benedictine monastery

Monastery courtyard, southern part with the prince's wing

Monastery chronicle

The year 753 is mentioned as the year of foundation of the Benedictine abbey "monasterium Wessofontanum", the foundation is said to have been made by Duke Tassilo III.

The founding legend tells that Duke Tassilo fell asleep under a linden tree and dreamed of a ladder to heaven at a 3-part spring. The next day his hunting companion Wezzo discovered three sources nearby: a sign of God for Tassilo: the duke had a monastery built in honor of St. Peter at this point and called the place "Ad fontes Wezzonis", in German Wessobrunn.

Duke Tassilo was born in 741 as the last offspring of the Agilolfinger, the oldest Bavarian princely family, and was made Duke at the age of seven. At the time the monastery was founded, he would have been twelve years old. The well building with three springs and a collecting basin can be viewed northeast behind the monastery buildings.

Wessobrunn has been an imperial monastery of the Carolingian dynasty since 788 and becomes the diocese around 900 augsburg awarded. It had to go through difficult times in the Middle Ages, including the destruction in 955 by the Hungarians and a major fire in 1220 with almost complete destruction of the facilities. Only the late Romanesque defense tower of the "Gray Duke" (also Roman tower), the Bell tower of the former monastery church.

The new construction of today's monastery complex began in 1680 under Abbot Leonhard Weiß. The dimensions of the baroque complex are only identical to those of the monasteries at the time Tegernsee and Ettal Abbey comparable.

With the beginning of secularization (1803) the monastery was abolished and the monastery building was used as a quarry for rebuilding the burned down town Weilheim used. The abbey church and two thirds of the monastery complex are demolished.

Monastery courtyard, northern part with St. Johann Baptist and Roman tower

In 1861, the Munich university professor Johann Nepomuk Sepp saved the remaining third of the monastery complex by buying the complex. The Romanesque sculptures come into that Bavarian National Museum.

The monastery buildings have been used by the Benedictine Missionary Sisters' community since 1913. Artists have set up their studios in the former stables and farm buildings of the St. Ottilien monastery.

Particularly worth seeing in the monastery complex are:

  • Princely wing with a length of 88 meters, its hallway is variously referred to as the "most important stucco in the world".
  • Large Tassilo Hall (also hunting hall) (around 1700);
  • The Stairwell with the magnificent stucco by Johann Schmuzer;
  • The free-standing bell tower, too gray duke or Roman tower in the cloister courtyard and the last remnants of the Romanesque cloister church (around 1260).
  • The Well house with the three sources included, created in 1735;

Tour times (as of March 2014): Wednesday to Sunday: 3 p.m.; just Prelate wing, Magdalenensaal and Large Tassilo Hall

Parish Church of St. Johann Baptist

St. Johann Baptist

Parish church in the north of the monastery courtyard, built and stuccoed by Franz Xaver in 1758.

Worth seeing inside the church are:

  • The Wessobrunn cross ceiling pictures, created by Johann Baader;
  • The late Romanesque cross from the middle of the 13th century, which was previously housed in the former abbey church;
  • The Wessobrunner Madonna, a picture of Mary called "Mother of Beautiful Love" is a devotional picture and was created around 1704, it shows Mary with a wreath of flowers as the bride of the Holy Spirit. In the 18th century, the motif was the model for a whole series of other pictures with the same theme, which were then distributed throughout the German-speaking area, it is on a side altar of the church.

More Attractions

  • Tassilolinde, according to legend, the sleeping quarters of Duke Tassilo. The linden tree with a circumference of more than 11 meters is said to be more than 1000 old, it is sometimes listed as the oldest linden tree in Germany, conservative estimates of the age of the tree are around 700 years.
Location: approx. 400 meters east of the monastery.
  • Paterzeller Eibenwald, the oldest nature reserve in Bavaria, protected since 1913 and nature reserve since 1939:
The 87.8 hectare forest is the largest yew forest in Germany with around 2,300 specimens and one of the largest in Europe. The yew population has its origin in the former monastery forest, some of the trees still date from the Middle Ages. The name of the conifer is derived from “iwa”, which is also the word for bow and crossbow. In the Middle Ages, the extremely elastic and tough wood of the yew trees, poisonous for humans and livestock, was used and exported for the construction of bows and crossbows, but the exact use of the yew trees in the Wessobrunn monastery forest is unclear.
Location: southeast of the municipality of Wessobrunn near the Paterzell district, Eibenlehrpfad with 10 folding boards;
  • Kreuzberg Chapel near the Ottilien estate to the west of the monastery: built initially as a wooden chapel to commemorate the destruction of the monastery in 955 when the Huns invaded. Today's stone building dates from 1595, inside the ceiling fresco by the local painter Matthäus Günther from 1771 and a boulder, called Hunnenstein, on which the monks are said to have been executed.

activities

Well house

shop

  • Farm shop in the Wessobrunn monastery (agricultural products from the St. Ottilien monastery) (above the village of Wessobrunn).

kitchen

  • To the Eibenwald (good middle-class Bavarian and international cuisine.), Peißenberger Straße 11, 82405 Wessobrunn / Paterzell (in the district of Paterzell). Tel.: 49 (0)8809 9204-0, Fax: 49 (0)8809 9204-70.
  • Gasthaus zum Löwen (pension), Üblhörstraße 2, 82405 Wessobrunn. Tel.: 49 (0)8809 352. Price: Single from € 30, double from € 45.

nightlife

accommodation

health

Brief information
Phone code08809
Post Code82405
MarkWM
Time zoneUTC 1
Emergency call112 / 110

Practical advice

trips

  • The Wieskirche, World Heritage Site by Unesco and the world's most famous example of the Wessobrunner stucco, is approx. 40 km away.

literature

Web links

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