Viel Spaß beim Entdecken!
More information about the history
Image: Chronogram above the entrance portal of the St. Remigius parish church
A chronogram is a phrase, a sentence, a motto or an inscription, usually a Latin verse, in which the total of all the letters occurring in it that are also Roman numerals (I, V, X, L, C, D, M) amounts to the year of the event that the text refers to. In this case, the event is the year the church was built (1779) and it appears three times, each time taking up two lines. The combination of numbers vary, e.g. in the first two lines: MDCCLVVVVVIIII Several other interesting churches and monasteries can still be found in and around Königswinter today.
The crypt, choir and transept of St. Pankratius originate from the 12th century. The church building dates back to the foundation of a priory of the Siegburg Benedictine monastery on the Michaelsberg mount. As part of the process of secularisation after 1800, the Oberpleis parish took over the building for use as the parish church, thus saving it from destruction.
Image: Wilhelm Steuerwaldt (1815–1871), Ruins of the Heisterbach Monastery in the Rhineland, 1863
Typical features of ecclesiastical buildings during the Romanesque period were the solid construction, clear geometrical shapes and semi-circular arches above the windows – and this is what the church of the Heisterbach Cistercian monastery (consecrated in 1237) used to look like. Today, only the ruins of the choir of the abbey church sill remain; in addition to the Romanesque stylistic elements, Early Gothic forms can also be seen. In the 19th century, artists discovered the magic of the site, with its English garden above the demolished monastery buildings, created from 1826 to 1827. They were thus instrumental in giving the abbey a new lease of life. Among these artists was landscape painter Wilhelm Steuerwaldt, who immortalised the ruins of the Heisterbach church from an unusual perspective in the middle of the 19th century. The motif brought him international fame and a copy of the painting is now owned by the Louvre in Paris.
Practical informationPainting from the Rhine romanticism movement
Siebengebirgsmuseum Königswinter, Kellerstraße 16
Tue–Fri 2 PM–5 PM, Sat 2 PM–6 PM, Sun 11 AM–6 PM, Mondays closed > Website
Heisterbach monastery
> Website