Der Dom zu Passau

With St. Stephen's Cathedral in Passau, the bishop's church of the largest diocese of the Holy Roman Empire in terms of area is presented, in terms of art history an outstanding work of the Northern Alpine Baroque with epochal innovations. On the one hand, thanks to its architectural sculpture and the numerous stucco figures, the building represents the high point of the "stucco baroque"; on the other hand, due to its generous and novel vaulted surfaces, it stands at the beginning of the "fresco baroque", in which the ceiling painting rises to become the factor determining the space. The baroque cathedral is in its core a Gothic building, which received a modern appearance after the city fire of 1662. The medieval bishop's church of the 14th to 16th centuries is also treated in detail in this monograph, as well as the largest cathedral organ in the world and the high altar, a major work of the Ars Sacra after the Second World War.