Klostermuseum Ochsenhausen

Description

In the Fürstenbau of the former monastery, the Klostermuseum Ochsenhausen presents the material remains of the former Imperial Abbey and links the sacred with the scientific.

The museum opened in August 1999 and is supported by the Roman Catholic parish of Ochsenhausen, the pastoral unit St. Benedikt, the city of Ochsenhausen and the state of Baden-Württemberg. The exhibition rooms are located in the south wing of the Fürstenbau, which formerly served as a guest wing and was among the complex’s representative reception areas.

Across two floors and roughly 500 square meters, the presentation tells the history of the monastery from the consecration of the first monastic church in 1093 to its dissolution and sale to the King of Württemberg in 1825. At the centre of the collection are liturgical objects such as a life-size carved Saint George, a silver tower monstrance, vestments and other sacred objects. This is complemented by administrative items, including filing cabinets and the secretary desk of the last abbot, Romuald Weltin.

Among the special exhibits is the original procession order for the annual Georgiritt with 600 riders, in the margin of which a monk left the note “Utinam pedestris…”. Also on display is an extraordinary azimuthal quadrant, designed by a mechanic and monk and crafted by a blacksmith; the quadrant, measuring about three meters, rotated around a dome in the southern corner tower, which was converted into an observatory in 1788. Quadrants of this size and construction are rare; they were used to determine celestial bodies and to calculate extraordinary celestial events.