BEURON

BEURON. — Archabbey of St. Martin (Hohenzollern, Germany). From 1077 it was a priory of Lateran Canons; it subsequently became an abbey in 1687 and was suppressed in 1803. Princess Caterina di Hohenzollern granted the buildings to WILTEN (v.), Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome (1863); it was re-established as an abbey in 1868 and raised to an archabbey in 1884.

The following abbeys were subsequently founded from it: Emmaus (in Prague-Czechoslovakia), Sechen in Styria (Austria), Maredsous (in Belgium), Erdington (England), Maria Laach, Gerleve, Neuburg (Germany), and Sion (Jerusalem). With its assistance, the female Benedictine abbeys of Maredret (Belgium), St. Gabriel (Prague, later transferred in 1920 to Bertholdstein, Styria), Eibingen, and Kellenried (Germany) were also established. B., constituted as a Congregation in 1868 and definitively confirmed on 8 July 1929, also cooperated in the foundation of other monasteries, such as the abbeys of Weingarten, Neresheim, and Grüssan (Germany), as well as in the revival of other Congregations, and contributed to the establishment of the Pontifical Institute of St. Anselm in Rome. B. promoted the liturgical cult and Gregorian chant in Germany in a particular way; in the scientific field, B. founded its institute for palimpsests and became the seat of the theological school of the Beuronese Congregation, with a particularly rich library.

BEURON SCHOOL. — In connection with the spirit that encouraged the restoration of the ancient liturgy and Gregorian chant, a school of painting arose at B. in the second half of the 19th century. It was founded by Pietro Lenz, born in 1832 at Haigerloch. After studying sculpture in Munich and Rome, he became a Benedictine under the name of Desiderius in the monastery

of B., where he later died in 1928; here he was joined by the converted Calvinist painter Wüger (D. Gabriele), the painter Steiner (D. Luca), and subsequently by others. The first work, executed in 1870, was the chapel of S. Mauro at B., where the new style was already fully formed. Other decorations followed in the cathedral of Constance (chapel of S. Corrado), in the abbey church, and in the cloisters of B. With the onset of the Kulturkampf, the monks
BEURON - View of the Archabbey.

They had to leave, and, invited to Italy by Fr. Bonifacio Krug, abbot of Montecassino, decorated in 1880 the Turret of the archcenobium with an imposing ensemble of frescoes and reliefs. After decorating the churches of Emmaus and S. Gabriele in Prague and carrying out other works in Stuttgart, Maria Laach, and elsewhere, the Beuronese, who had lost Fr. Gabriele Wüger but gained Fr. Adalberto Gresnicht, were entrusted with their most important undertaking: the richly ornamented decoration of the crypt of S. Benedetto and S. Scolastica in the abbey of Montecassino, inaugurated in May 1913.

The school subsequently carried out many other works, also attending to goldsmithery, furnishings, and embroidery.

The Beuronese tended to synthesize forms within geometric schemes; their mysticism also led them in the footsteps of the Italian trecento and quattrocento artists, particularly Angelico.

The rigor of the method, formulated by Fr. Desiderio Lenz himself in a handbook, nevertheless sometimes produced manifestations of a new kind of mannerism. Yet there always remains the fascination of a work carried out by a community with perfect unity of purpose, with the harmonious fusion of all the major and minor arts, and with the fullest possible aesthetic exploitation of the various techniques and the most diverse materials.