Holzen Abbey

Monastery buildings and church.

Holzen Abbey (Kloster Holzen) was a convent of Benedictine nuns at the village of Golzen (west of the B2 at Nordendorf above the Schmutter) in Allmannshofen in Bavaria, Germany.

History

Legend recounts that it was founded in 1150 by Marquard von Donnersberg as a double monastery of Benedictine monks and nuns below the present site. After the women's convent was enlarged in the 15th century the abbey of monks was dissolved in 1470 as part of the Melker reform. Maria Langenmantel was abbess (master) between 1538 and 1553 - she was the sister of Christoph Langenmantel, a canon who helped Martin Luther escape Augsburg in 1518.

It was made an abbey in 1617 and rebuilt between 1696 and 1704, with the new church consecrated in 1710. The new building contains a Baroque interior with rich stucco work by Benedikt Vogel and sculptures by Ehrgott Bernhard Bendl. It held a pilgrimage to the Christ Child from 1740 onwards. During secularization the monastery was dissolved and handed over to the princes of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, although the nuns were allowed to stay in the monastery. The whole complex passed by marriage to the counts of Fischler-Treuberg in 1813.

Between July and October 1877 the painter Wilhelm Leibl lived on the monastic lands in Holzen and his home became a meeting place for the painters from Munich who gathered around him, as well as where he painted his portrait of Rosine Edle von Poschinger, sister of Bismarck's biographer Heinrich von Poschinger. He also painted Count Treuberg, whose son Ernst Ludwig Count Fischler von Treuberg in 1904 married Hetta Countess Treuberg, later known as a pacifist, who stayed on at Holzen until their divorce in 1914. Ferdinand Fischler von Treuberg's relative Pedro II of Brazil often visited Holzen, as did Carlo Caputo, apostolic nuncio to the king of Bavaria. The Treuberg family sold the monastery buildings to the St. Josef Congregation of Ursberg via a middleman in 1927. They turned it into a facility for people with disabilities, offering living and working opportunities. It also hosts a hotel for cyclists on the Romantic Road.