After the original Benedictine Abbey on the Altmünster Plateau had been destroyed in 1542, the monks built a new abbey or Neumünster in 1606 in the Grund. This in turn was destroyed by fire in 1684 but was rebuilt on the same site in 1688 and extended in 1720. After the French revolution, it served as a police station and prison before becoming a barracks for the Prussians after Napoleon's defeat in 1815. From 1867, it once again became a state prison. During World War II, the Nazis used the Abbey to imprison political resisters to their occupation of Luxembourg. Among the most notable of those political prisoners was Luxembourg's best-known sculptor Lucien Wercollier.
Today Neumünster Abbey is a public meeting place and cultural centre. Since 1997, it has been the home of the European Institute of Cultural Routes.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.