The monastic island of Reichenau on Lake Constance is an outstanding testament to the religious and cultural role of a great Benedictine monastery in the Middle Ages. In the year 724, the abbot Pirmin founded the monastery on the ‘rich isle’, and the Benedictine abbey developed between 800 and 1100 into a spiritual and cultural centre of the Holy Roman Empire.

The three Romanesque churches on the island built between the 9th and 11th centuries are fine examples of the architecture of the early Middle Ages in Central Europe. The meticulously restored wall paintings show Reichenau to be a ‘highly significant artistic centre of great significance to the history of art in Europe in the 10th and 11th centuries’. In the year 2000, UNESCO inscribed the monastic island in the World Heritage List.

Website
http://www.reichenau.de