Franziskanerkirche zur unbefleckten Empfängnis

Franziskanerkirche zur unbefleckten Empfängnis stands in Überlingen on Lake Constance. You spot it by what it lacks: a tower. Franciscans are a mendicant order, so only a small turret crowns the roof. Yet it is the second largest church in the city. Inside, three naves run through a basilica the Bishop of Constance consecrated in 1348.

Franciscan brothers were already active in the city by 1259, and Countess Elisabeth von Königsegg donated their ground in 1300. Burial-plot sales helped finance the building, a trade the tailors' guild and donors from as far as Sigmaringen kept up until 1520. Provincial chapters and even town elections for mayor and judges convened here. Sympathy with Luther's followers later cut off the burial trade, and the Thirty Years' War left just five monks by 1648. Alms and brotherhoods funded a recovery, and in the early eighteenth century Johann Michael Beer led the Baroque remodelling. He gave the nave its vault, and Franz Ludwig Herrmann painted it, including a dome that recalls Florence. Sebastian Schilling frescoed the enlarged choir from 1754. The high altar shows Mary treading a serpent, Adam and Eve, the Trinity and a kneeling John Duns Scotus beside her. Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer and Franz Anton Dirr carved the saints Lawrence and Stephen, the same pair who decorated the pilgrimage church of Birnau.

Secularization dissolved the convent in 1808, and its buildings went on to serve as school, barracks, court and prison. The Holy Spirit Hospital bought the site in 1855, and the retirement home St. Franziskus occupies it. The church remains in use for worship and for events. An organ case from 1755 by Johann Georg Aichgasser holds an instrument whose pipes date from 1958. Look for a figure of John the Baptist and a crucifix carved before 1350, two of the oldest works here.