Kollegiatstift SS. Jakobus und Tiburtius, Gothic parish church in Straubing, Germany.
The Basilica of St. James (Basilika St. Jakob) is a Gothic hall church with a three-aisled nave encircled by twenty side chapels, its walls of reddish-brown brick with lighter stone accents. The long steep red-tiled roof is flanked at the left by three slender green spires and interrupted on the right by a square brick tower with a clock and a dark bulbous spire reaching 89.5 metres.
Construction began around 1400 under Hans von Burghausen, and the three-aisled nave with its ring of twenty side chapels was completed around 1512. In 1581 the canons of Pfaffenmünster were transferred here, adding Saint Tiburtius as second patron. A city fire in 1780 destroyed the tower, roof and chapter house; the tower was rebuilt and the interior restored between 2011 and 2016.
The church has two patrons: St. James the Greater and, since 1581, St. Tiburtius, when the canons of Pfaffenmünster moved here. The high altar shrine of 1486 shows both patrons with Mary, Mary Magdalene and St. Leonard. The Moses window, designed around 1490, is now attributed to Albrecht Dürer and was made in Veit Hirschvogel's workshop.
The tower, at 89.5 metres the highest in the Gäuboden, was restored between 1998 and 2001, and the interior between 2011 and 2016. The church is a working parish church, so visits are best timed outside service hours. The nave is surrounded by a ring of twenty side chapels, which makes it easy to lose your bearings inside.
The tower reaches 89.5 metres, making it the tallest church tower in the Gäuboden plain and one of Straubing's landmarks. Its slender pointed onion dome was only finished at the end of the 16th century, well after the nave was completed around 1512.
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