St. Augustine's Church, Mainz, Germany

The mendicant order of Augustinian hermits had a monastery in the Augustinerstrasse from 1260 until 1802. The one-aisled church was newly constructed, together with the monastery, from 1768 to 1772. The Diocesan Priests’ Seminary has been located here since 1805. The ornamentation of the church is so rich because patrons generously supported the work: The Elector did not want a “peasants’ church” in his residence city. The façade shows the vivid forms of Main-Franconian baroque and a Coronation of the Virgin by the Mainz sculptor Nikolaus Binterim. In the interior, the painter Johann Baptist Enderle from Donauwörth glorified the life of the Father of the Church, Augustine, in large, bright ceiling frescos. Johann Heinrich Stumm built the divided organ with the centre window in1773; it is one of the few surviving instruments of this dynasty of organ builders.

A lime wood sculpture from 1420 smiles out of a niche between the south side altars: Mary with the Child Jesus playing – an unusual work of Gothic art in its brightness which is assigned to the “soft style”. The highly venerated miraculous image was rescued from the burning Church of Our Lady in 1793. In the high altar is an iconographic rarity: At the death of Christ, God the Father lets “Mankind’s certificate of debt” be torn up by a putto.

References:

Mainz.de

User Reviews

Z L (10 months ago)
Mesmerizing. Very quiet & not touristy.

Bernd Matthias (3 years ago)
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Larissa Jost (4 years ago)
Wer die Chance hat da ein Orgelkonzert zu hören sollte sich das nicht entgehen lassen. Die Kirche hat schöne Deckengemälde, aber die Orgel ist einfach grandios, muss man gesehen und gehört haben. Sie ist sogar für hörgeschädigte geeignet, man spürt die Töne am ganzen Körper.

lindsey bakthy (4 years ago)
A hidden gem! Amazing ?

Ivan Talichni (7 years ago)
The red sandstone facade of St. Ignaz rises in the midst of the low old town houses on the Kapuzinerstraße. It is decorated with gray sandstone figures, including that of the patron saint and martyr St. Ignatius of Antioch (+ after 110). Between 1763 and 1774, the church was built according to plans by Johann Peter Jäger, and instead of the old church of a included after 1200 in the city wall Mainz suburb.

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