Pilgrimage Architecture as an Experiential Space: Religious topography and the visual presentation of places of grace in the early modern period (Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross in Polling and Schönenberg Pilgrimage Church in Ellwangen)
Final Report Abstract
Schönenbergkirche Ellwangen: In the confessional age, pilgrimage churches, in competition with one another, expanded their range of medially advertised sites of grace, where the faithful could experience divine grace. Using the example of the Church of Our Lady on the Schönenberg near Ellwangen (1682), this study presents a first comprehensive account of how an existing Loreto chapel from 1639 was in an original way incorporated into the apse behind the high altar of a wall-pillar church with galleries. Written sources, architectural and visual analyses, as well as numerous comparisons, illustrate how architectural "enveloping” was consistently employed as a method for demarcating and visualising this site of miracles. In a confessionally mixed environment, a singular space of grace of early Baroque pilgrimage architecture emerged through the interplay of typological patterns, local devotional practices, and topographies. At the same time, the church is regarded as the initial building of the so-called "Vorarlberg Minster Scheme." In this project, this previously overlooked spatial typology and influence of Schönenberg was examined, analyzing the church and chapel construction for the first time in an integrated overview. The two contrasting spaces are visually connected by the Gabriel window – a motif typical of Loreto chapels – which is framed by the high altar. This created reciprocal relationships that made central mysteries of salvation spatially and artistically tangible and intensified their impact. The chapel is not staged as the small within the large, but rather as the causal antecedent of the new. Contemporary sources enabled a nuanced understanding of the pilgrimage site’s builders’ and designers’ aims, of the rituals and ceremonial apparatuses, the sacred topographies, the spatial accessibility and functions. At the time of its construction, similarly complex architectural and ritual incorporations could only be found in Italian examples, which led back to the roots of the reception of Loreto. Alongside the Santa Casa in Loreto, the Church of S. Maria della Carità in Brescia confirmed the parameters identified for Ellwangen. Stiftskirche in Polling: Based on existing deficits in the understanding of pilgrimage architecture, the study questions the quality of a place rich in grace and miracles as thematised in the source material according to its medial components and its functional parameters. In the synopsis of festive and individual rituals with the architectural and artistic offerings, the phenomenon of the pilgrimage church was to be described as a space of experience that made plausible an actually effective presence of the sacred. A central case study on the collegiate church of the Holy Cross in Polling demonstrates a differentiated sacral topography in a combination of descriptive analysis and source research. The presbytery and high altar present themselves as a stage for pilgrimage rituals, the sacristy as a supplementary relic treasury and memorial site. Further separate chapels were set up for donor memorials and the cult of relics. The festive hall of the nave provided further places for acts of lay piety. The results of the Polling analysis are the starting point for in-depth cross-sections on Bavarian- South German pilgrimages in order to re-examine hitherto neglected components of pilgrimage. Pontifical masses at the upper altar demonstrate the double altar type as a stage for high-ranking ceremonial liturgy in prominent cases such as Vilgertshofen, Andechs and Biberbach. Further case studies examine the ritual of ‘Heiltumsweisung’ in early modern interiors and the species of relic chapels (Scheyern collegiate church, St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg, Ebersberg, etc.), public places of worship for individual devotion as a counter-programme to the exclusive ‘Heiltumskammern’ of the princely residences. It was also possible to determine the proportion of confraternities and thus the commitment and participation of the laity as important factors in the pilgrimage church experience.
Publications
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Schwellenraum der Inkarnation: die Santa Casa bei S. Abbondio, Cremona. – In: Donetti, Dario; Gründler, Hana; Richter, Mandy (Hg.): Viaggio nel Nord Italia. Studi di cultura visiva in onore di Alessandro Nova. Florenz 2022, S. 129–133
Jöchner, Cornelia
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Stavbení úloha a funkce v baroku. Poutní chór s dvojitým oltářem v bavorských poutních kostelech / resumé p řednášky[Bauaufgabe und Funktion im Barock. Der Wallfahrtschor mit Doppelaltar in bayerischen Wallfahrtskirchen. Resümee zur Forschung]. – In: Kroupa, Jiři; Horáková, Tereza; Řezníčková, Veronika (Hg.): Zadání, umlecká úloha a funkce v architektuře a ve výtvarném umění. Brno 2022, S. 43–54
Fürst, Ulrich
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Die Santa Casa auf dem Schönenberg bei Ellwangen. Gnadenerfahrung und Katechese. – In: INSITU. Zeitschrift für Architekturgeschichte 15 (2023), Heft 1, S. 85–98
Northemann, Yvonne
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DIE STERN-JAGD NEPOMUCENISCHER LICHTMETAPHORIK IM SYNERGISMUS KÜNSTLERISCHER MEDIEN. Johannes von Nepomuk, 39-58. Hollitzer Verlag.
Fürst, Ulrich
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Wallfahrtsarchitektur als Erfahrungsraum. Die Stiftskirche Heilig Kreuz in Polling im Szenario süddeutscher Gnadenstätten des Barock (Studien zur christlichen Kunst 13). Regensburg 2024. ISBN: 978-3-7954-3877-7
Fürst, Ulrich
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Wallfahrtsarchitektur als Erfahrungsraum. Die architektonische und rituelle Inkorporation einer Loreto-Kapelle in der Schönenbergkirche bei Ellwangen (Studien zur christlichen Kunst 14). Regensburg 2025. (erscheint im Frühsommer) ISBN: 978-3-7954-3878-4
Jöchner, Cornelia & Northemann, Yvonne
