Wilhering Abbey

Wilhering was founded in 1146 and would be one more Cistercian house except that in 1733 the church burned down, and the rebuilding that followed produced what is generally regarded as the finest rococo church interior in Austria. Johann Haslinger carried it out with stucco by the Wessobrunn school, ceiling frescoes by Bartolomeo Altomonte and altarpieces by Martino Altomonte and others: white and gold plasterwork of extreme delicacy over pink and green marbling, with the ornament dissolving the architecture rather than framing it, which is precisely the rococo argument. The Cistercian rule against decoration was, by that century, a memory. The abbey runs a grammar school and the Gothic cloister survives from the earlier building alongside the eighteenth-century church.

History

Ulrich and Kolo of Wilhering gave their family's old castle for a monastery after the family moved to Waxenberg, first settled by Augustinian canons, and on 30 September 1146 Ulrich replaced them with Cistercians from Rein; it struggled, and in 1185 the abbot, with only two monks left, handed it to Ebrach, whose monks resettled it under the protection of Duke Leopold VI. Wilhering founded Hohenfurth, now Vyšší Brod, in 1258, it was nearly lost in the Reformation, when an abbot fled with its funds and by 1585 no monks remained, until abbot Alexander a Lacu restored it, and on 6 March 1733 fire destroyed almost all the buildings, before the great Rococo rebuilding; abbot Alois Dorfer led it from 1851 to 1892 (Wikipedia, Wilhering Abbey).

Highlights

• Austria's finest rococo interior - the church rebuilt after the fire of 1733.
• Wessobrunn stucco - white and gold plasterwork dissolving the architecture.
• Altomonte frescoes and altarpieces - the painted scheme through the church.
• A surviving Gothic cloister - from the medieval abbey beside the new church.

When to go

All year. Half a day.

Before you go

The church is free and open but services take priority. The rest of the abbey is a working school and monastery, shown only by arrangement. Photography inside is restricted.

Nearby

Linz is ten minutes east; the Danube cycle path runs past the abbey.

Key facts