Michaelsberg Abbey, Benedictine monastery on Michaelsberg hill in Bamberg, Germany

Michaelsberg Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery on the Michaelsberg hill above Bamberg. Its church, founded around 1015 and consecrated in 1121, has a Romanesque core, a Baroque west facade by Leonhard Dientzenhofer from 1696, and two west towers with spires. The monastery buildings, enlarged by the Dientzenhofer brothers, now house the Vereinigtes Katharinen- und Elisabethen-Spital retirement home.

Eberhard I, first Bishop of Bamberg, founded the abbey in 1015 as the bishop's private monastery, with monks from Amorbach and Fulda. The church was consecrated in 1121 after an earthquake destroyed the earlier building around 1117. A fire in 1610 damaged the church, prompting the rebuilding of the nave and the two west towers. From 1696 Leonhard Dientzenhofer added a two-storey Baroque facade, and Johann Dientzenhofer laid out the terrace in 1723.

The vaults of the nave, aisles, transept and west gallery carry 580 painted plants, completed in 1617 by four painters and known locally as the Kräutergarten or Himmelsgarten. Among them are pineapple, cotton, pomegranate and tobacco, alongside apple, pear, blackberry and beech. The painters probably worked from a herbarium by Matthias de L'Obel kept in Bamberg; lilac, jasmine and laburnum reached the city through Carolus Clusius in Vienna.

The church reopened on 25 April 2026 after 14 years of restoration and is open Fridays to Sundays and on public holidays. Six new bells were installed in December 2025. The former abbey buildings now house the Vereinigtes Katharinen- und Elisabethen-Spital retirement home, so they are not open to visitors.

The abbey church's ceiling is painted with 580 plants, completed in 1617 by four painters and known locally as the Kräutergarten or Himmelsgarten. Exotic species such as pineapple, cotton, pomegranate and tobacco appear beside native apple, pear, blackberry and beech, probably copied from a herbarium by Matthias de L'Obel kept in Bamberg.