The baroque/rococo style church Vierzenheiligen near the bavarian city of Bamberg is one of Europe´s finest architectural treasures. A visit to this richly decorated pilgrimage church, designed by the great 18th century architect Balthasar Neumann is strongly recommended if you plan to visit Bavaria.
The eminent art historian and broadcaster Kenneth Clark, Lord Clark of Saltwood (1903-1983) describes in his autobiography the powerful impression Vierzehnheiligen and its architect made on him:
"Perhaps the happiest time that Jane (his wife) and I had together in the whole making of ´Civilisation´ was our visit to Germany to film the Rococo churches. I had been to some of them before without Jane, and it was a joy to see how rapturously she responded to them. But I had never been to the finest of them all, the Vierzehnheiligen.
What a masterpiece! This church and the palace of Würzburg tempted me to call Balthasar Neumann the greatest architect of the eighteenth century and, much as I love Gabriel, I will stand by my judgement. I believe that the Rococo churches of Bavaria are still underrated, not only as architecture, but in the discovery of a new truth, that the faithful may be persuaded by joy rather than fear."
Here is G.E. Kidder Smith´s description of Vierzehnheiligen (from the book Looking at architecture):
"A hundred years after Borromini's Quattro Fontane, the Late Baroque/Rococo in South Germany and Austria broadened architectural horizons even further. Here will be found architecture, sculpture, and painting vibrant with light and so closely woven together that it is often difficult to know where one art form begins and the other subsides. It is an architecture of joy, and if the cornucopia at times overflows, so be it.
"Among the most spritely creations of this short-lived period—the engines of the Industrial Revolution were beginning to herald a new culture—is Vierzehnheiligen, the Church of Fourteen Saints, by Johann Balthasar Neumann. Within its sober, straight-sided outer shell (on pre-existing foundations), color and luminosity bursts forth. Its inner walls define ovals and circles, its piers vanish into the decorated planes of the ceiling, an altar stands triumphant, while light floods in and color snatches the eye. (As opposed to seventeenth- century Early Baroque churches, daylight plays an essential role.) There is here—as throughout this South German cultural period—a hint of the 'confectionery' (Pevsner), but architecture is richer for this hedonism, and so are we."
More information here about Vierzehnheiligen.
PS
While in that part of Bavaria, don´t forget to visit Balthasar Neumann´s other masterpiece, the Würzburg Residenz with magnificent ceiling frescos by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
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