Wallfahrtskirche Bildstein, Catholic pilgrimage church in Bildstein, Austria.
Wallfahrtskirche Bildstein is a Catholic pilgrimage church in the village of Bildstein in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, built in an early Baroque style with two onion domes on its western facade. The church stands on a hilltop that rises clearly above the surrounding countryside, making it visible from far across the Rhine Valley below.
The church was built between 1662 and 1676 by Michael Kuen, an architect from Bregenz, replacing an older wooden chapel that had stood on the same hilltop. Over the following decades, the interior was gradually furnished with painted ceilings and altar pieces that brought the building to its current form.
The church is dedicated to the Feast of the Visitation of Mary, celebrated on 2 July. Its ceiling paintings show the Seven Joys of Mary, including the Visitation, the Nativity and the Coronation, with Mary as Help of Christians in the centre. The south wall carries Stations of the Cross painted on wood, bearing restoration inscriptions from 1797.
The church stands on a free square at 656 m in the village centre, flanked by two benefice houses, with the parish cemetery adjoining to the south. The west double-tower facade is visible far across the Rhine Valley, about 250 m below. The main west portal has carved wooden doors from around 1676.
The church holds the tomb of Field Marshal Count Maximilian Lorenz von Starhemberg, fatally wounded at Mainz on 7 September 1689 and buried in a crypt beneath the building on 11 October 1689. He had helped fund the construction. The carved wooden portal doors, made around 1676, show vine scrolls, masks and grotesque faces.
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