Zwettl

ZWETTL. - Cistercian abbey in the diocese of St. Pölten (S. Ippolito), in Lower Austria.

A daughter house of Heiligenkreuz (v.), of the line of Morimond, it was founded by the knight Adamaro I of Kuenring in 1138, in the heart of the Waldviertel (forest region), on a bend of the river Kamp, and it did much for the colonization and civilization of these immense expanses. It flourished until the time of the Hussites, who devastated it; it declined in the age of Lutheranism but flourished again in the 17th-18th centuries. It was harassed by Joseph II; it escaped oppression as a center of culture and still continues its lofty mission: it has the care of 15 incorporated parishes, and it has a theological study and a boarding school for boy choristers.

The church, on the site of the primitive Romanesque one, is of the early Gothic style, with a "Hallenchor" and a transept of three naves of the same height, with 13 apsidal chapels, the work of a "master" John, under the influence of Clairvaux and Pontigny and of the French cathedrals. From the 12th-13th century are the cloister, the chapter rooms and the Fountain Chapel, a grandiose mixture of late Romanesque and early Gothic. The rear part of the church with the bell tower (90 m. high) is a majestic construction by J. Munggenast (1722-27), with a fine facade with a single bell tower. The interior of the church is decorated, stuccoed and frescoed in Baroque style by various artists, among them J. M. Schmidt, M. Altomonte and P. Troger. Magnificent organ (1730) by J. Egedacher. The choir stalls, the benches, the confessionals are most valuable work by lay brothers (M. Markl and L. Maleg). The monastery too, with its 6 courtyards, the church, the gardens, the annexed buildings, forms a complex of high pictorial interest and presents itself today as a Baroque reconstruction. Notable are the hall of the Library, by Munggenast with frescoes by P. Troger, the refectory and the abbatial residence. In the Museum, notable is the Madonna of Abbot Bohuslaus (1248-1258), a delicate French work. The Library has over 50 thousand volumes and 420 manuscripts. Well known is Fr. Leopold Janauschek (d. 1898), eminent historian of the Cistercian Order (Origines Cistercienses, Vienna 1877, ff.; Bibliographia Bernardina, ibid. 1891, many contributions scattered in journals, etc.). The neighboring town of Z. also preserves many monuments, such as two Romanesque churches with three naves, a Romanesque "Karner" (ossuary), the walls and many Gothic and Baroque houses.

Giuseppe Löw