BEISSEL, STEPHAN. - Art historian, b. at Aachen on 21 April 1841, d. at Valkenburg (Holland) on 31 July 1915. A Jesuit from 1871. From 1880 he was an assiduous contributor to the journal Stimmen aus Maria Laach. His extensive critical output took as its subject the art of the Romanesque period (Die Baugeschichte des Doms des hl. Victor zu Xanten, Freiburg im Breisgau 1883, a work combined with two others in a 2nd ed. under the title: Die Bauführung des Mittelalters, ibid. 1886), principally in the Rhineland (Geschichte der Trierer Kirchen..., 2 vols., 2nd ed., ibid. 1899); then the history of the cult of the Blessed Virgin (Geschichte der Verehrung Marias, ibid. 1909-13), and of the relics and pilgrimages of the saints (Geschichte der Verehrung der Heiligen u. ihrer Reliquien in Deutschland, ibid. 1890-92), in the Middle Ages. He dealt more directly with Italian art in three works: Vatikanische Miniaturen (ibid. 1893); Fra' Angelico (ibid. 1895; French trans., Lille 1899) and Bilder aus der Geschichte der altchristlichen Kunst und Liturgie in Italien (ibid. 1900).

He also left a collection of meditations for every day of the year (Betrachtungspunkte für alle Tage des Kirchenjahres, 3rd ed., 10 vols., ibid. 1904-11) and edited the reprint of Az's work, Die kirchl. Kunst in Wort und Bild in Deutschland (4th ed., Regensburg 1915).

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: J. Braun, P. Stephan B. S. I., in Stimmen der Zeit, 89 (1915), pp. 505-13; E. Lamalle, s. v. in DHG, VII, coll. 479-80.

Edmondo Lamalle

@incollection{ec2_beissel_stephan, author = {Lamalle, Edmondo}, title = {Beissel, stephan}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {II}, pages = {1151}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/beissel-stephan} }

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Beissel, Stephan

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