Freising Cathedral

About

The cathedral rises on the Domberg above the old episcopal town of Freising, the long-time seat of one of Bavaria's oldest dioceses. Its dedication couples the Mother of God with Saint Corbinian, the missionary bishop whose ministry shaped Christianity in the region.

The present sandstone basilica was begun in 1159 after fire destroyed its predecessor on Palm Sunday of that year, and was completed by 1205. A Gothic vault replaced the original wooden ceiling in 1481–83, and the interior received its lively Rococo decoration in 1724 through the brothers Cosmas Damian and Egid Quirin Asam, in time for the millennial commemoration of the bishopric.

In the four-aisled crypt rests the tomb of Saint Corbinian, the patron saint of the diocese. At the centre of this crypt stands the celebrated Bestiensäule, the medieval pillar of beasts, one of the most distinctive sculptural works of the German Middle Ages.

Freising is also remembered as the cathedral where Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, was ordained to the priesthood, lending it a particular place in recent Catholic memory.

History

An early church stood on the Domberg by 715 and was consecrated as an episcopal seat by Saint Boniface in 739. A triple-nave church followed in 860, rebuilt after a fire in 903. After a second devastating fire on Palm Sunday 1159, the present Romanesque basilica was raised between 1159 and 1205.

The interior was reshaped in successive eras: a Gothic vault in the late fifteenth century, a Baroque renovation begun in 1619, and a Rococo decoration completed by the Asam brothers in 1724 for the diocese's thousand-year jubilee. Frescoes painted over in the 1920s were carefully restored in 2006.