Kim Richards

Current Mood: tired

HofKirche means “Court Church”. We stumbled into this one by deciding to see what the inside of this church looking building looked like. Grin. The statues are very interesting and I learned there were originally to be forty eight but only twenty eight were completed. Some of them are former rulers, others figures of legend (King Arthur). All are part of the great center memorial to Emperor Maxmillian I.  Though he is not buried here as he originally planned, the memorial remains because the whole of it is too heavy for the church he actually is buried in.  Construction began in 1553. The reliefs on its sides are depicting his life accomplishments (deeds).

As we’re discovering, so many of the castles, city buildings and churches have mixtures of gothic, baroque or renaissance architecture. That just shows the amount of time these places existed in. The baroque influence here came from repairs after an earthquake. HofKirche has a renaissance era organ which they boast is one of five of the most famous in the world. It is the largest renaissance organ to remain undamaged in Austria.

All the marble and gold is mind-boggling;  it’s gorgeous, as is the detail in the scroll work, statues and ironwork. Thankfully, people have taken care of these things throughout the ages. 500 years is a long time to gather such precious beauty, protect it and care for it. I, for one, do appreciate their efforts.

Pics are here:

http://s105.photobucket.com/albums/m203/sharrisselva/Germany%20trip/April%2011%202008/