Saint John Abbey, Müstair

The Benedictine Convent of St. John ( rätoroman. Claustra Son Jon ) in the Val Müstair in the Swiss canton of Grisons is a very well-preserved medieval monastery of the Carolingian period. The monastery was included by UNESCO in 1983 in the list of world cultural heritage.

Description

At the entrance of the cemetery stands the Chapel of the Cross, which characterized by its round arched blind niches. The cloverleaf shape is originated in the 8th century. This confirms the dating of the years still supporting floor beams upstairs. The Western located farmyard close from two gate towers. These originate from the period around 1500 and are outside around arcuate, ogival inside. The south tower shows a mural with a donkey on a red ground, blowing the bagpipes a Junkers. The three figures represent Immaculata, St. Benedict and St. Scholastica Represents the Rococo work comes from Christian Greiner.

The double chapel of St. Ulrich and St. Nicholas stands out due to its early Baroque features a Sgraffitobordüren and black painted window trim. In the lower chapel of the original dome of the choir a stucco ornament is seen four angel figures in antique-style robes. West of the double chapel, a three-storey residential tower adjoined, surrounded by two-storey Saalbauten.

History

The monastery is considered as a foundation of Charlemagne, whose life-size plaster sculpture is from the High Middle Ages, between the middle and southern apse of the monastery church. It was founded in the time of the Carolingian conquest of the territories of the Lombards 774 and 778 of the Bavarians; as the oldest timber church was dendrochronologically dated to about 775, a year after the conquest of Lombardy. However, the establishment of the monastery may have been implemented by the Bishop of Chur as a confidant of the emperor. Ties, thus ensuring access to until 1816 for the Diocese of Chur belonging Vinschgau. The monastery served the Emperor as a base, the control of intersecting roads, the traveler as a hospice, the bishop as the administrative center and, not least, place of worship. John the Baptist, the patronage was assigned through the foundation, which simply Monasterium was told, of which the (now ) Romansh name Müstair derived. Originally a monastery, it is since the 12th century a convent of Benedictine nuns.

Carolingian frescoes

The Carolingian frescoes with which the church was provided by 800, are unique in nature and extent cultural-historical monument of early medieval sacred image representation; because of them attained the church on regional celebrity. 135 frescoes are mostly well preserved; 1200 fully painted and papered over in the late 15th century, they were discovered at the end of the 19th century new. A series of scenes from the life of David, who moved as a picture strip the whole Church, spent 1908/1909 in the Swiss National Museum in Zurich, the rest were from 1947 to 1951 exposed.

The Carolingian cycles drag images into five horizontal stripes on the north and south walls of the interior. One of the most famous motifs located on the north wall, depicting the Flight into Egypt, three plots show Christ as a church founder, ruler and teacher of the world, and as victor in the apses. Another ( Romanesque around 1200) in the central apse are again including the Feast of Herod, in the dancing Salome reached the beheading of John the Baptist, the patron saint of the church and the monastery. The unknown painter of the Carolingian frescoes is sometimes referred to in art history as a champion of Müstair.

Monastic life

In the Benedictine monastery live twelve nuns (as of October 2012). The community voted on October 11, 2012 Sr. Domenica Dethomas the new prioress. After 120 years, it is an interruption of this Official bekleidende and Romansh -speaking locals again. She has taken on January 28, 2013, the Office of Sr. Pia Willi, who had the monastery passed the last 26 years.