WÜRZBURG (Herbipolis), Diocese of. - City and diocese in Germany. It has an area of 11,018 sq km with a population of 1,480,624, of whom 872,941 are Catholics, distributed in 492 parishes, served by 788 diocesan priests and 270 regulars; it has two seminaries, 37 male religious communities and 666 female (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 457).
The first mention of W. dates back to 704: Castellum Wirteburch; St. Boniface founded the episcopal see there (741). The Emperor Conrad II granted (1030) the bishop many privileges, including that of minting coin. The power of the bishops extended in the 12th century to eastern Franconia, so much so that they became dukes of Franconia. The ecclesiastical principality of W. was secularized in 1832 and in 1814 passed to Bavaria.
The Cathedral, dedicated to St. Kilian, in its Romanesque complex is of the 12th century, although it underwent Baroque decorations and transformations in the interior. The church of St. Burkard is Romanesque, but was enlarged in the Gothic age; notable is the wooden bust of the Madonna, a work by T. Riemenschneider (1490). In the Marienberg castle the chapel with a central plan dates back to 704. The Franciscan church dates back to 1250-1300. In the market is the artistic chapel of the B. Virgin (1377-1470), from whose portal come the two statues of Adam and Eve, a work by Riemenschneider (1493). The University church (1586-1591) was redone by the architect A. Petrini (1696). The Romanesque church of the Neumünster was reduced to Baroque style by Greising, who added the dome and the facade to it; in the interior are depicted Sts. Kilian, Coloman and Totnan, Irish apostles of Franconia.
The series of bishops of the Schönborn house enriched W. with Baroque buildings and the prince-bishops between 1719 and 1770 embellished the episcopal residence on a design by the Viennese L. von Hildebraidt and by M. von Welsch of Mainz. The staircase, the white hall and the imperial hall were frescoed by G. B. Tiepolo. The bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn (1573-1617) founded in 1579 the Julius Hospital and in 1582, on a design by C. Robin, commissioned the architect W. Beringer with the reconstruction of the University, founded on 10 Dec. 1402 by the bishop Johann Egloffstein with the approval of Boniface IX.
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Enrico Josi