Klosterneuburg

Once upon a time there was a Princess named Agnes (not to be confused with the adorable little girl named Agnes in Despicable Me). She was to be married to the love of her life, Margrave Leopold III. Agnes had a beautiful wedding veil, her favorite of all her veils, in fact. Sadly, a huge gust of wind came and stole her veil away far into the woods. Leopold, being the amazing, dashing man he is, vowed that he would find her veil and build a monastery in that very spot.

Years went by and the veil was nowhere to be found.

One day, while traveling through the woods, a pillar of light pierced through the trees. As Leopold approached the light, he found Agnes' veil, resting upon an elderberry bush, untorn and still in its perfect form. Up above in the light, he saw the Virgin Mary, looking down as though she had lovingly been watching after the veil the entire time.

Leopold fulfilled his promise. There in that very spot lies the Stift Klosterneuburg.

Originally, the church was a Romanesque basilica. It suffered a lot of damage from wars and sieges and was therefore updated in several different styles from the Gothic to the Baroque. In fact, the interior is entirely Baroque now.

I had to add the shots of the organ. There are organs everywhere in Vienna and they are all fascinating and beautiful.

Klosterneuburg also had a wonderful treasury with lots of cool stuff. As you could probably imagine, there was a ton of gold and precious gems and stones.

 This was carved from one solid piece of ivory. There are over a 150 characters in there!

Beautiful crown. I was wondering what I would look like wearing it, then I stopped wondering and knew I'd look awesome.

The crowned jewel of the Klosterneuberg Monastery is the Verdun Altar. 

This was created (or finished, I should say) in 1181 by Nicholas of Verdun. It is an amazing work in gold and enamel. Now this is what is really cool. It is set up as a typology. Each row moves chronologically through the Bible. The top and bottom rows are from the Old Testament and the middle is the New Testament, which basically just follows the life of Christ. Each of the stories in the columns are related to each other and create parallelisms. 

This altar was not originally in this triptych form that it is in now. It used to surround the altar in the church. Tragedy struck and the church burst into flames. At the last minute, this alter was saved, taken apart piece by piece. The problem with this is that no one knew what order they were supposed to go in. Luckily, they were able to figure it out based on the typology. It is still originally how it was when it was first made. There have been no touch-ups and no modern modifications made to it. The only thing that has changed is its setting. It was magnificent to behold from only a few feet away.

Believe it, or not, I actually have proof that I was here at this monastery. The Monastery overlooks a little suburb of Vienna.

Of course, I didn't go alone. I brought along a few of my homies. 

And yes, they are just as awesome as they look.