SMALLEST BAROQUE CHURCH - BREGENZ
St John of Nepomuk Chapel in Kornmarktplatz
Okay, there are lots of small chapels around, built in the Baroque age of ornate architecture by wealthy princes, but one rather small church in the Rococco style of the mid-1700s is smack in the middle of Bregenz, on the Kornmarktplatz, in the Austrian Vorarlberg (see Vorarlberg Four Corners). Where most other small chapels are attached to other structures, or complexes, the St John of Nepomuk Chapel in the heart of the pedestrian zone, stands alone, under its rotunda dome like a rest stop for weary souls. A young theologian, Dr. Franz Wilhelm Haas from Sigmaringen in the Swabian hills of Germany to the north, country home to the Hohenzollerns (see Sigmaringen Castle), came to Bregenz for a visit with his grandparents. He decided to go for a swim in Lake Constance and started to drown. A nearby rafter spotted him and pulled him from the lake.
Some years later to commemorate his miraculous rescue, in 1757, Hass engaged local Voralberg architect Johann Michael Beer, who had overseen the reconstruction of the Baroque Cathedral of St Gallen (see St Gallen Baroque Library) to build a chapel dedicated the protector saint of those in peril of drowning, St John of Nepomuk, also the patron saint of Bohemia, who had his own encounter with water.
A martyred Benedictine monk, St John of Nepomuk was ordered to be drowned in the Vlatava River of Prague (see Prague Cathedral) in 1393 by the “good” King Wenceslaus (of Christmas carol fame). He was thrown off the famed Charles Bridge after having gotten on the wrong side of Wenceslaus’ competition for power with the Avignon Popes (in one version of the story or was the queen’s confessor who heard too much in another version). In any case there is now a statue to the saint on the Karlsbruck bridge at the spot where he departed.
From outside, the church looks relatively unremarkable, except for the cylinder standing in the middle of the cobblestone walking plaza of the historic Corn Market, but step inside and the Baroque age comes to life, with rich frescoes, plaster relief sculptures and an ornate alter, where the good Doctor Haas is buried. The church seats a congregation of about 30 and is now a Hungarian denomination which meets on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings. The rest of the time it is free to enter when the doors are unlocked. On the walls are plaques dedicated to the Austrian Prince’s Regiment's service in Russia in 1914, and the visit of Hungarian Emperor Charles and Empress Zita to Bregenz in 1917, in the last gasps of the drowning Habsburg empire. (see Kaiser Crypt Vienna). © Bargain Travel Europe
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