St. Bartholomäi-Kirche Jonitz, Parish church in Waldersee district, Dessau-Roßlau, Germany.
St. Bartholomäi-Kirche Jonitz is a Baroque hall church of 1722–1725 in the Jonitz part of Waldersee, Dessau-Roßlau, reworked in Neoclassical style from 1816/17 by Carlo Ignazio Pozzi. Its square west tower, 42 metres high, ends in an 18-metre obelisk aligned on the sight axis from Schloss Luisium. The nave has shallow entrance projections and pilaster-like strips on its walls; the tower's lower storey holds a mausoleum.
The church was built between 1722 and 1725 and later modified in two phases to adapt to changing tastes. Renovation work from 1816 to 1817 and again from 1820 to 1823 reshaped its interior and exterior appearance.
The interior holds a gallery, pulpit, and several burial monuments, including the mausoleum of Prince Leopold III Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau and his wife Louise. These tombs reflect the church's importance as a burial place for the local ruling family.
The church stands in Jonitz, part of Waldersee in Dessau-Roßlau, with the tower's obelisk aligned to the sightline from Schloss Luisium. During the Elbe flood of 2002 the interior stood 1.60 metres under water; the restoration cost more than half a million euros. Visitors approach on foot through the village; the surrounding lanes are narrow.
The tower's 18-metre obelisk finial was chosen to close the sightline from Schloss Luisium, and the idea likely came from Johann Gottfried Grohmann's garden journal "Ideenmagazin für Liebhaber von Gärten". Prince Leopold III directed the burial project from his sickbed at the palace after a fall from his horse in 1817.
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