Pfarrkirche St. Bartholomäus: Baroque Parish Church in Bartholomäberg, Austria
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Austria
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Habsburg
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page19 sections
History
Pfarrkirche St. Bartholomäus is a Roman Catholic parish church in Bartholomäberg, Austria. The present building is a Baroque church consecrated in 1743, standing within one of the earliest parish centers in the Montafon valley. Its dedication to Saint Bartholomew, one of the Twelve Apostles in Christian tradition, is associated with the mining once carried out in Bartholomäberg and Silbertal.
Early Parish Center
The church first served as a filial church of St. Lawrence’s Church in Bludenz. Around 1100, Bartholomäberg became the first parish in the Montafon valley, with documentary evidence for this status dating from 1350. The parish and municipality are therefore counted among the valley’s earliest localities. Bartholomäberg remained the principal center of the Montafon until the late Middle Ages.
The church’s religious importance was recognized at the Council of Constance, a major Church council held from 1414 to 1418 to resolve a papal schism and address Church governance and doctrine. In 1418, five cardinals issued an indulgence charter for the church. An indulgence was a formal remission of some or all of the temporal punishment associated with sin under specified conditions. A church consecration is recorded in 1503.
The Eighteenth-Century Rebuilding
By 1721, a visitation record described the church as very old, structurally defective, and too small for its populous parish. Bishop Ulrich von Federspiel of the Diocese of Chur ordered a new church in the Baroque style. Parish priest Johann Franz Marent laid the foundation stone of the present building on 26 May 1729. Construction began in 1732 under the master masons Sebastian Zumkeller and Christian Bitschnau and the master carpenter Hans Ganahl.
Bishop Joseph Benedikt von Rost of Chur consecrated the new church on 6 June 1743. The building retained the parish’s established dedication while providing a larger and more elaborate setting for worship. Its furnishings were developed over subsequent decades, including the pulpit of 1736, the high altar of 1737, and the side altars created in 1746 and consecrated in 1753.
Alterations and Conservation
The Pest Chapel, built in 1630 or 1640, was demolished during road construction in 1936. A cross-vaulted war memorial was then constructed in front of the masonry porch at the west portal. The turned elements of the nave pews also date from 1936. The interior was restored in 1966, the organ in 1973, and the exterior and interior were restored again in 1998 and 1999.
The Romanesque processional cross was named “Monument of the Month” in June 2003. Its original is held by the Diocese of Feldkirch, while a copy is used in the church. Pfarrkirche St. Bartholomäus belongs to the Montafon deanery within the Diocese of Feldkirch and is protected as a monument.
Remains
Pfarrkirche St. Bartholomäus stands at approximately 1,087 meters above sea level on a flat terrace in the center of Bartholomäberg. A walled cemetery encloses the church. The Baroque nave and narrower choir share a single gabled roof. The west and north entrances have distinct porches, while the tower rises on the uphill side north of the choir, where it is less affected by pressure from the slope.
Exterior and Entrances
Nave, Choir, and Tower
The rectangular nave has a continuous plinth band and four segmental-arched windows on each side. The narrower choir ends in three-eighths of a polygon and also has segmental-arched windows. Baroque plaster surrounds frame the windows. North of the choir, the 38.5-meter-high tower has an octagonal belfry, segmental-arched and circular windows above a continuous cornice band, and an onion dome.
West Portal and War Memorial
The west portal is framed by sculptural columns and a straight entablature, or horizontal upper structure, beneath a segmental pediment. A masonry porch stands before it and is open on both sides. The war memorial added in 1936 stands in front of this porch. The porch and memorial are covered by a hipped roof.
North Portal and Weiberhof
A closed masonry porch with a gabled roof projects from the north portal. Its round-arched door is set below a gable containing a fresco of Saint Bartholomew within a quatrefoil. In front of the portal is the Weiberhof, an enclosed forecourt formed by a raised cemetery wall and an open entrance hall under a lean-to roof. The space includes a mid-seventeenth-century crucifix set in a niche.
Interior Architecture
Nave and Choir
The nave is a rectangular hall with a flat wooden-panel ceiling. Its segmental-arched windows carry painted crowns. A recessed, chamfered round arch leads to the choir. The single-bay choir has a cove-vaulted ceiling supported by flat wall pilasters with two wavy band courses.
Sacristy and Mortuary Hall
A Gothic pointed-arched doorway in the left choir wall leads to the sacristy. Its recess contains rounded molding decorated with acanthus leaves on turned bases. Beneath the sacristy is a barrel-vaulted lower level used as a mortuary hall. The two-bay sacristy has a net-rib vault resting on consoles. A sculpted floral wreath marks its keystone, while empty heraldic shields occupy the intersections of the ribs.
Paintings and Stained Glass
The west gallery has a straight wooden-panel balustrade painted around 1730 with figures of Judas Thaddaeus, James the Younger, Matthew, Philip, Andrew, John, Mary, the Savior, Joseph, Peter, James the Elder, Bartholomew, Thomas, Simon, and Matthias. Michael Lorünser’s 1732 paintings of the Fourteen Holy Helpers cover the flat wooden ceiling of the nave. This group of fourteen saints was traditionally invoked together in late medieval and early modern Central Europe for protection against particular illnesses and dangers. The five rows show Erasmus, Blaise, and George; Pantaleon, Vitus, and Christopher; Cyriacus, a Holy Spirit opening with an inscription, and Dionysius; Eustace, Giles, and Achatius; and Margaret, Barbara, and Catherine.
Jacob Bertle painted the choir fresco of the Multiplication of the Loaves in 1907. Stained glass made by the Tyrolean Glass-Painting Institute in 1906 and 1907 depicts Saints Peter and Paul on the left and right sides of the choir, together with Saint Andrew. The choir window showing the Last Supper bears the inscription “Christoffel Ardolff pfarrer uff Sant Bartholomes Berg 1575.” The nave windows depict Thaddeus, Matthew, James the Elder, and John on the left, and Thomas, Philip, Simon, and Matthias on the right.
Altars and Devotional Furnishings
Miners’ Altar
The Miners’ Altar, made around 1525 and placed against the right nave wall, has a central shrine with Bartholomew, Placidus, Saint Anne with the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus, Lucius, and John the Baptist on stepped bases. Reliefs on the inner left wing show Eustace and Christopher above Theodul and Eligius. The inner right wing contains Bartholomew and Jodocus above Barbara and Catherine.
The outer wings show Sebastian and Roch on the upper left, Blaise and Conrad below, Ursula and Margaret on the upper right, and Helena and Magdalene below. Its predella, the lower section of an altarpiece, contains a painted and gilded Adoration of the Magi made by Josef Anton Bertle and his sons in Schruns in 1851. The upper section contains the Coronation of the Virgin, with Magnus and Stephen at the sides. Above it is a Crucifixion group with John and Mary, surmounted by the Savior. The antependium, the decorated frontal covering of an altar, bears a painting of Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary from around 1525.
High and Side Altars
Georg Senn created the Baroque high altar in 1737. Its four-column structure follows a curved ground plan, with twisted columns bearing angel herms, or supports shaped as half-length figures. The voluted upper section also has a curved entablature. The high-altarpiece depicts Bartholomew before the Virgin and Child with Anne and Joachim and is inscribed “Jac: Carl Stauder Constanz: Invenit et Pinxit 1737.” Andreas Kölle and his workshop made the figures of Joseph and John Nepomuk, God the Father in the clouds, two kneeling angels, and putti in 1737.
Georg Senn created the left and right side altars in 1746 as four-column structures on high plinths. They were consecrated in 1753. The right choir altar was transferred from the demolished Pest Chapel.
Pulpit and Choir Stalls
Georg Senn made the pulpit in 1736 with a curved basket and volute bands, while Andreas Kölle supplied its figures. A painting of Pope Gregory from around 1736 is set into the rear wall, and the sounding board carries figures of the Evangelists and angels. Senn also made the choir stalls on the right side of the choir, with putti added by Kölle. The stalls originally had eight seats and now incorporate newly installed confessionals.
Cross, Font, and Stations
The oldest and most valuable furnishing is a Romanesque processional cross made around 1150 in Limoges in southern France, a major medieval center of enamel work on copper. A processional cross is mounted on a staff for carrying during religious ceremonies. The original is held by the Diocese of Feldkirch, and the church uses a copy.
The eighteenth-century baptismal font stands on the left side of the choir and has a figure of John the Baptist from the Kölle workshop. Rudolf Vonier made the holy-water stoup in 1746. Josef Anton Bertle painted the Stations of the Cross between 1820 and 1828. Josef Klemens Witwer created the crucifix above the chancel arch around 1790.
Organ and Bells
The organ has a case decorated with putti, veil-work, ornamental carving, and a cartouche dated 1792. Johann Michael Grass is considered its builder around 1792, and the instrument is described as a particularly fine one-manual organ. The tower contains a four-part peal cast by the Grassmayr Bell Foundry of Innsbruck in 1952 and 1955, together with a historic funeral bell cast by the Rüetschi Bell Foundry of Aarau in 1949.
