The term monastic landscape can conjure up images of a network of scattered Cistercian monasteries as well as prelate monasteries close together or a hilly landscape with striking onion domes, a symbol of southern German baroque churches. However, such monastic landscapes have little in common with the landscape as a natural space. They are man-made architectures that form a cultural landscape in relation to the space in which they are located, which must always be seen as a "result of the interaction between natural conditions and human influence in the course of history". This is how the Association of State Monument Conservators in the Federal Republic of Germany put it in 2001 and at the same time stated that dynamic change is an essential characteristic of such cultural landscapes. However, it remains difficult to develop a catalogue of criteria that sufficiently describes such monastic landscapes and their processes of change on the basis of scientific categories in order to make them tangible and comparable for research purposes.
In principle, it can be stated that monastic landscapes are spaces that were constituted by religious communities on the basis of the same characteristics and along political, administrative, religious or social parameters. The prerequisite for such an approach is the assumption of spatial sociology, according to which spaces cannot be understood as fixed, topographical units, but rather as socially produced. It was only through the communicative relationships of a monastery, which was in regular exchange with religious brothers and sisters, economic partners or educational institutions, that spaces were formed that would not have existed without the monasteries and their system of branch monasteries and religious congregations. For example, one could observe a localisation and spatialisation of social relationships in the mirror of Bavarian monastic landscapes.
The narrowing of the concept of monastic landscapes to Baroque monastic landscapes adds a further dimension that initially appears to be primarily art-historical. This is particularly evident in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention of 1972, in which cultural landscapes are described as the variety of results of interactions between humans and the environment (§37). A corresponding definition should therefore take two aspects into account: Firstly, the outstanding significance for humanity (§36) and secondly, for geographical and cultural representativeness. Heinz-Dieter Heimann and Jens Schneider applied these UNESCO criteria to monastic landscapes for the first time in 2008. They emphasised above all that UNESCO was primarily concerned with the question of what should be considered cultural heritage worthy of protection because it is particularly representative on the one hand and particularly worthy of preservation on the other.
When two Bavarian monuments were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the early 1980s, they were the Würzburg Residence and the Wieskirche near Steingaden, two buildings from the heyday of the Baroque and Rococo periods. Since the 1980s, the World Heritage concept, which was initially applied to individual building complexes, has been broadened in terms of content: In addition to natural monuments, which are now also classified as worthy of protection, living traditions have been added under the term "intangible cultural heritage".
This has had two main effects on the subject of monastic landscapes: Monastic buildings are no longer to be assessed merely as architectural monuments, but more generally as cultural testimonies or as cultural and spatial formers. Accordingly, entire (cultural) landscapes are regarded as World Heritage sites if they fulfil the criterion of being typical of an environment shaped by man.
Players in the construction industry
This is where research into regional history comes in and asks about the means, but also the aims and dimensions of human intervention in space: How did architectural styles and building features spread throughout southern Germany from Upper Swabia to Bohemia? How were monastic landscapes able to emerge that to this day largely present themselves as a unified whole, even though they were designed by different patrons, master builders and craftsmen? To what extent were so-called master builder schools such as the Dientzenhof, Wessobrunn, Ticino and Graubünden schools responsible for the Baroque remodelling in Bohemia, Bavaria and Franconia? Was it the requirements of the builders that came into play here? Or were financial means ultimately decisive for the artistic realisation, with cost-cutting measures or construction deadlines having an indirect effect on the building?
In the following, the focus is therefore on the protagonists; the people who were involved in the construction and who worked on the building site. The baroque building sites, where hammering, sawing and bricklaying took place, should be seen as meeting places: Spaces for organising work, but also for bringing together people from very different backgrounds, education and training. The main source material used for this purpose is the tradition of accounts. For the 17th and especially the 18th century, extensive building accounts have survived in some cases, which also provide information on the - in some cases Europe-wide - networks of master builders, construction workers and craftsmen, which have only been researched selectively at best. But what does a look over the construction fence at the Baroque building sites reveal?
A building boom in the south of the Old Empire, in Bavaria, Bohemia and the Habsburg hereditary lands only became apparent towards the end of the 17th century. One of the first major building projects after the Peace of Westphalia was the Benedictine monastery in Kempten. The abbey and collegiate church had been destroyed by Swedish mercenaries in 1632, making renovation unavoidable. Prince-Abbot Roman Giel von Gielsberg ordered the construction of a new Baroque monastery complex to begin as early as 1651. The master builder initially employed was Michael Beer from Vorarlberg, who came from the Bregenzerwald and whose training as a master bricklayer can be traced back to Lower Austria and Moravia.
Just a few years after the end of the war, the largest building contract in the entire southern German region was awarded in Kempten, as a result of which the Auer Zunft was established in parallel with the growing monastery complex. Michael Beer trained at least 18 apprentices in this newly founded guild organisation, also known as the Bauhandwerkerschule. Among the first were the brothers Michael and Christian Thumb, who in turn took on numerous building commissions for monasteries in the Upper German region and consolidated the position of the Vorarlberg master builders in Swabia with buildings such as the monasteries in Ellwangen, Obermarchtal, Wettenhausen and Zwiefalten. Benedictines, Dominicans, Cistercians and Premonstratensians were among their clients. While the Auer guild mainly designed south-west German Baroque buildings, the Dientzenhofer family of master builders also established themselves in Bohemia, Franconia and eastern Bavaria, also making a name for themselves with Italian-influenced Baroque buildings and working for numerous clients, not just ecclesiastical ones.
Construction motivation and financing
But why was so much, so large and so baroque built from the 1680s onwards? The argument that repair or reconstruction measures had become necessary at the latest 50 years after the devastation caused by the Thirty Years' War falls short of the mark. Italian-influenced Baroque architecture had also become an almost representative element of the sovereigns north of the Alps with a delay of around a century. With regard to the monasteries, reference should be made here to the Benedictines, who in the 1680s - finally - received the papal concession to form their own Bavarian congregation. 19 abbeys belonged to it - including not all Bavarian Benedictine monasteries, but nevertheless famous monasteries that were significantly expanded and remodelled in the Baroque period: Benediktbeuern is one of them, as are Ensdorf, Frauenzell and Mallersdorf. This is also the period in which the monasteries of the Upper Palatinate were reorganised.
And in the transition to the 18th century, considerable building activity began not only in the Benedictine order, but also in other orders such as the canons, regular canons, medics and reform orders, which defined the position of the monastery in the visible forms of architecture and image and at the same time represented it to the outside world. The monastery complexes can undoubtedly be seen as the powerful prelates' rival endeavour to building a palace. However, Baroque monastery construction not only imitated the residential palaces of the Baroque period, but also established its own architectural formal languages - also with a view to royal monasteries such as the Spanish Escorial.
In the Bavarian region, the Swabian Escorial, namely the Benedictine Abbey of Ottobeuren, stands out in particular, where in the middle of the 18th century, with the help of a kind of "master plan", according to G. Dischinger, buildings were continuously remodelled, extended and rebuilt for more than 50 years. Behind this was a calculated slowness: the slower the continuous building process took place, the less the building expenditure weighed in the annual household budget compared to other ongoing expenditure.
Over the years, Abbot Rupert Neß had issued Accords-Contracte or Bestandts-Contracte, in which small-scale work was defined as the goal of the Accord. The abbot also made sure that the number of workers on the construction site was not only reduced during the winter construction breaks to save costs, but that the number of construction workers employed was always flexible, even for a few days or weeks, depending on the workload. The master builder in charge, Simpert Kramer, implemented this accordingly.
The diary of Abbot Rupert Neß is a unique source for Ottobeuren, which can be analysed in large parts as a kind of building log. In October 1717, shortly before the building site was to be made ready for winter, the master builder had already dismissed the majority of the journeymen and day labourers: "After M. Sympert Kramer von Edlstätten had done his work according to the Accors supra of 12 April 1717, and set it in proper order, he has now mostly finished his work" (Diarium, pag. 1057, quoted from Dischinger Vol. III/Sources, p. 704). Even though he had "still kept some [workers] back" to finish the kitchen chimney with them. In this way, the major building project in Ottobeuren did not turn into a financial drama like many other construction sites.
A look at the Premonstratensian monastery of Roggenburg, which in the mid-18th century commissioned Simpert Kramer, now over 70 years old, to rebuild the monastery church, was faced with more urgent building measures and was unable to realise a corresponding concept with steady, slow construction progress. The Roggenburg abbot complained to the abbot of Churwalden in a letter: unfortunately, he would not be spared having to demolish and rebuild the south wing due to the risk of collapse, for which God grant him grace, patience and money. The extent to which exculpatory phrases were uttered here can hardly be proven. The dilapidation or insufficient size of the church are ultimately also topoi for the justification of building measures.
After all, Roggenburg had a clear view of the money, the financing intentions appeared feasible and the abbot's concerns were moderate. However, the situation was very different in Altomünster at the same time, where several monks demanded an electoral visitation in the 1770s in order to defuse an escalating situation between the priests and prior. The commissioners of the Ecclesiastical Council found 21 outraged fathers, deacons and lay brothers who put on record that Prior Simon II. Böck was running the church building and the secular business of the monastery behind their backs. It was stated with particular pathos that the wine had been cancelled and replaced with adulterated beer and that there was no longer any heating in November.
However, the visitation also allowed the prior to have his say, who was able to convincingly explain that the need to build the church had made such strict measures necessary. The budget for the wine had been far too generous anyway, so that he had withheld the wine money of 210 guilders for the current year completely for the church building. The building work there had already been going on for seven years and the income at the time of the visitation had not covered the costs for the ongoing maintenance of the conventuals for some time. Prior Böck therefore saw a rigid savings policy as the only way to cover the 2,000 guilders in debt, which consisted of material costs and tradesmen's bills.
Master builder families and construction teams
The expenses for trained craftsmen, as well as for day labourers and so-called "henchmen", who worked in the quarries even in winter, even found their way into the diary of the Ottobeuren abbot. In addition to information about the respective annual accounts or piecework acceptance, Rupert Neß's records also provide rare insights into the building operation and the co-operation on the construction site. Foreign craftsmen are specifically named; in particular the "Stuccador" - Ticino and Graubünden plasterers - who were employed as a group of people. However, even on 17th century building sites, Italian settlement slips still provide information about foreign-language builders who were mainly employed for interior finishing and decorative work.
The master builders seem to have played a decisive mediating role here, as many master builders and architects of the late 17th century had spent years as apprentices in Italy. They therefore had very practical language skills, which enabled them to mediate between German-speaking and Italian-speaking craftsmen; on the one hand linguistically, but also on a social level: in addition to a few specialists, numerous unskilled day labourers and assistants, i.e. women, and children helping out, were also employed in construction. Despite a few successful families of master builders, it cannot be assumed that there was a homogeneous craftsman or artisan community.
Rather, these master builder families were an exception. They included, for example, members of the Dientzenhofer family from the foothills of the Alps, who actually provided a large number of master builders for more than two generations. They can all be traced back to Georg Dientzenhofer the Elder, who came from a single-ridge farm, Beim Gugg, near present-day Bad Feilnbach. All but one of his six sons became master builders in Bohemia, the Upper Palatinate and Franconia. Even two grandsons followed in these footsteps, which is surprising because no guild, as in Au or Wessobrunn, had set or smoothed their career path.
After the eldest son - Georg Dientzenhofer - settled in Prague around 1675 following an apprenticeship as a bricklayer and subsequent travelling journeyman, all of his siblings followed him there. The difficult economic situation in the Electorate of Bavaria in the years following the Thirty Years' War may have played a role in this decision, as unlike at home, his brother was able to arrange apprenticeships and jobs in Bohemia.
Marriage connections were formed with already established families of master builders who had Prague citizenship and the Dientzenhofers succeeded in learning the Baroque formal idiom in the service of foreign, mainly northern Italian master builders such as Carlo Lurago, Domenico Orsi and Francesco Caratti and realised it in numerous building commissions for the new nobility in Bohemia, who were now loyal to the emperor, as well as for monastic clients. Some of the Dientzenhofer brothers first learnt the mason's trade in Prague, including Johann, who pointed out in a job application in 1707 that he had "focussed on architecture from a young age [and] learnt the fundamentals from two famous master builders in Prague".
What makes the family connections of the Dientzenhofers interesting for historical research is that they exchanged ideas intensively, took on various building commissions together and, above all, that their monastery and church buildings between Bohemia and Franconia became style-defining. Elements of a uniformly modelled monastic landscape can be seen in their buildings, which even extend beyond the Bavarian region and illustrate the historically close links between Bohemia and Bavaria.
However, the fact that a common origin does not necessarily go hand in hand with a uniform design language is demonstrated by two other groups, which are referred to less as families of master builders and more as early modern building groups, in order to express the fact that they were associations of different building trades, but which worked together and could refer to the same region of origin - in the case of the Ticino and Grisons plasterers - and the same guild association - in the case of the Wessobrunners. These construction teams also applied as part of the association and were able to score points because both the site management and various trades were in one hand and the organisation of payment could be outsourced to the responsible site manager, who acted as an independent contractor.
Plasterers from the Grisons and Ticino in particular were known for forming such building teams. Their family and professional networks can be traced in early modern Rome as well as in the Baltic region, even reaching as far as the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway and the Tsarist Empire. The spread of the aforementioned Italian-influenced Baroque style in architecture is generally considered to have opened the door for the Northern Italian builders. Northern Italian, Florentine and Roman decorative elements were adopted and modified. What had become a defining style in Rome at the beginning of the 17th century was also in demand in Bohemia after the Battle of White Mountain and in many southern German territories after the end of the Thirty Years' War at the latest.
The finer stucco recipes from Graubünden and Ticino were convincing on numerous construction sites due to the fact that they contained a significant proportion of gypsum. This allowed finer, smoother surfaces to be created, which were perceived as much more elegant. However, it was not only their experience in plastering large wall and ceiling surfaces that explains the supra-regional migration of these plasterers in particular. A look at their living and working conditions allows general conclusions to be drawn about the requirements on Baroque building sites. Especially when the economic conditions in the regions of origin are taken into account.
In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, similar emigration motives can be surmised for Graubünden and Ticino as those already outlined for the Dientzenhofers. It is true that the Alpine valleys from which the famous dynasties of plasterers originated were not in a difficult phase of economic consolidation, as was the case in the Electorate of Bavaria after the Thirty Years' War. However, the economic conditions in Ticino and especially in the long valleys along Lake Como were similarly desolate for specialised builders and craftsmen.
In the early modern period, the area belonged to the Duchy of Milan, which was under Spanish rule from the mid-16th century until the early 18th century. From the early 17th century onwards, the Maestri Comacini, the master builders from Lake Como, enjoyed astonishing careers between northern Italy and the territories north of the Alps. With regard to the motives behind the migration processes, older research primarily emphasised so-called push factors, which saw the poor economic conditions in the often narrow Alpine valleys as the primary reason why so many plasterers and master builders came from Graubünden and Ticino.
To put it bluntly, the main motives were firstly to be found in the meagre living conditions in the Grisons and Ticino villages, which were closely linked to the natural topographical conditions of the Alpine valleys, where no productive agriculture was possible on barren soils, but access to important trade routes and mountain passes favoured the development of a centuries-long tradition of emigration. Secondly, there was simply a lack of local clients. The 'Spanish period' from 1535 to 1714 was thus stylised as an economic and cultural dead end, characterised by stagnation and backwardness.
Against this background, it was long assumed in migration research for these northern Italian Alpine regions that impoverishment, surplus population and increasing fiscal pressure from central and middle authorities would ultimately have led to increased migration: first to Rome in the Papal States and to the Roman aristocratic families and their small and large households and courts, then to Eastern and Central Europe and, after the end of the Thirty Years' War, also to the north in the area of the Old Kingdom, where all signs pointed to reconstruction after the long war. Then to Eastern and Central Europe and, after the end of the Thirty Years' War, also to the north in the area of the Old Empire, where all signs pointed to reconstruction after the long war - in close connection with the desire to realise modern Baroque architectural forms. What sounds quite convincing at first glance must, however, be supplemented by a closer look at the sources.
The Ticino plasterers can be found in Rome at the end of the 16th century mainly because outstanding master builders from the same regions of origin were involved in important major construction projects in the Papal States: Carlo Maderno from Capolago designed the façade of St Peter's, among other things. At the same time, Francesco Castelli, known as Borromini, from Bissone and Domenico Fontana from Melide, a neighbouring town of Bissone in Rome, were also active. These three certainly most famous master builders from Lake Como needed fresco artists, plasterers and sculptors to decorate their palazzi and churches, which they preferably recruited from their circle of relatives and acquaintances.
Such pull factors are investigated more closely in more recent studies by reconstructing family networks. This makes it clear that although the poor economic conditions in the regions of origin of the construction specialists played a role, they were not the only decisive argument. The migration processes were far more than a purely economic phenomenon that merely reflected changes in the labour force. The high mobility of the Maestri Comacini was rooted in a family system that consisted of both regional solidarity and close social ties.
In addition to geographical proximity, there is also family proximity and actual family relationships: On the one hand, the aforementioned master builders Maderno, Borromini and Fontana all came from places just a few kilometres apart. On the other hand, the Castelli family, from which Borromini came, was related to the Maderno family from Capolago. Other families that repeatedly appear in the sources over the next 200 years as plasterers and master builders are the Solari from Carona, who in turn were related by marriage to the della Porta from Porlezza. The Carloni from Arogno married into the de Allio and Spazzo families from the Val d'Intelvi. This valley, which lies between Lake Lugano and Lake Como, was home to building dynasties such as the Carlone, de Allio, Frisoni, Retti and Lurago.
Current economic and social history research now assumes that the craftsmen from the Val d'Intelvi were even able to benefit from the recession that hit Como in the 17th century. The supposed economic decline therefore by no means affected the entire territory of the Duchy of Milan, but primarily the urban areas. Smaller communities and scattered villages along the lake and in the Alpine valleys, on the other hand, did not suffer any serious restrictions. Rural areas were even favoured by the development of prices. Accordingly, the motives behind the migration processes in the Como region must also be considered in a differentiated manner and in some cases reinterpreted.
Economic hardship and overpopulation are no longer considered the central motives behind migration processes. Rather, it must be taken into account that regular migration systems can be proven for individual villages. The strong connection between the mobile craftsmen and their places of origin was one - if not perhaps even the - key to the success of the construction teams based there. And the craftsmen were successful insofar as they were able to maintain their position as sought-after specialists in the building trade for generations and influenced stucco fashions throughout Europe; ultimately in an almost monopoly-like position!
What specifically characterised the Upper Italian craftsmen and where they were ahead of their competitors was their ability to realise a large construction site, such as the Cistercian Abbey of Ebrach, on their own. In doing so, the building teams struck a chord with the times, as builders in the 17th/18th century had the ideal of architecture that merged with stucco, frescoes and sculptures to form a harmonious whole. To achieve this, however, the building trades had to work hand in hand, from marble cutters to fresco and barrel painters to plasterers, sculptors, wood carvers and gilders. For the people of Graubünden and Ticino, the tightly organised principle of their workshops and relatively good training within the family and among friends came into play here.
Everyday life on the construction site: mobility readiness
However, what applied to the willingness of plasterers and the early lime cutters of the 16th century to be mobile cannot simply be transferred to other building trades: accounting sources often show that bricklayers and carpenters were hired locally. The only restriction was if the masons or carpenters were also the master builders. This is because contemporary master builders in the 17th/18th century very often had basic training as bricklayers. This applied, for example, to the training of Michael Beer, Simpert Kramer or Georg Dientzenhofer.
All three had initially learnt the bricklaying trade. However, bricklaying and plastering were not mutually dependent training programmes. But even for plasterers with only rudimentary knowledge of bricklaying, there are individual examples where they were also able to take over the construction management. Donato Giuseppe Frisoni is such a case: the Ticino native from the mountain village of Laino lived in Ludwigsburg in the Duchy of Württemberg for more than 26 years; the first six years as a plasterer, then as the architect responsible for the newly designed residential city with its numerous baroque buildings. In the end, Frisoni was only able to manage the huge building project by bringing in relatives from the Val d'Intelvi.
However, the names of the individual plasterers have not always survived. Invoices often only contain job titles. In contrast to normative sources, sources that could provide an insight into the actual processes on the building site have less chance of surviving. Construction manuals or detailed diaries, as in the case of Ottobeuren Abbot Rupert Neß, are the exception. Against this background, we are usually denied insights into the actual lives of early modern builders. Isolated biographical traces have always survived. But even such famous plasterers as Dominikus Zimmermann remain pale. Yet his stuccowork in the early 1980s explicitly contributed to the World Heritage status of the Wieskirche ... And if the source situation is already challenging for these "stars" of the Baroque and Rococo periods, what about the many (almost) nameless stucco artists from the Val d'Intelvi, the Bregenzerwald or from Graubünden?
The potential for analysis hidden in administrative records from the early modern period becomes clear here. In addition to normative sources such as council ordinances, licensing restrictions, guild regulations and labour regulations, administrative documents available in customs registers, account books or receipts can also provide information on working conditions in the construction industry. However, it is also worth taking a look at the invoice documents or church registers when it comes to migration issues.
It is difficult to prove in detail whether the Northern Italian specialists on Bavarian building sites were actually seasonal labourers who returned to their homeland during the winter months. Instead, we have to rely on chance discoveries. In southern Germany, for geographical reasons alone, it is assumed that plasterers were only hired for the construction season from spring to autumn. However, the analysis of parish registers has provided concrete details for individual Ticino residents.
The plasterer Geronimo Francesco Andreoli, who had trained with Donato Polli in the Nuremberg area and was mainly active in northern Franconia (Bayreuth) in the second half of the 18th century, is such a case: he had all his children and godchildren baptised in his home near Lugano during the winter months. Analysing the baptismal registers can thus prove that he continued to work seasonally and regularly returned to Ticino in the winter months. Other plasterers from Ticino made their home north of the Alps without, however, giving up their mobility.
Andrea Maini (Maynio) is the final example of the unique extent of early modern mobility: Maini had concluded a contract with the abbot in Ottobeuren in 1717, for whom he had carried out stuccowork until the spring of 1728, entirely in accordance with the principle of continuous commissioning. In between, there had been enough time for Maini, who also organised the stucco work in Ottobeuren and assigned it to other Ticino stucco artists depending on the order situation, to work in Memmingen and at Holzgünz Castle in Swabia. On 15 March 1728, he completed his commission in Ottobeuren, settled his contract and left the Ottobeuren building site for Glückstadt in the Duchy of Holstein.
Although the town on the Lower Elbe was the hometown of Maini's wife, it was hard to imagine a more European, exotic and distant location from Ottobeuren in the early 18th century - at least from a Swabian Catholic perspective! By April 1729, however, Andrea Maini was already back on the building site in Ottobeuren. He is thus representative of the many Upper Italian plasterers who benefited from their own mobility: The fact that they usually travelled around without family members meant that they could move from one place of work, i.e. from one building site to the next, much more easily than their locally based colleagues.
