Valentinskapelle

Valentinskapelle stands on Münsterplatz in Ulm, beside the south tower of the Ulm Minster. A Russian Orthodox community uses this small chapel for worship. At the square’s southeastern edge, its compact form places a medieval building within the Minster setting.

Heinrich Rembold, an Ulm patrician, built it in 1458 as a burial place for his family. Matthäus Ensinger is credited with its original design. Builders incorporated parts of an older structure, including large cellar vaults once used for wine storage by a Cistercian monastery. The Reformation later secularised the building for other uses. It became a warehouse and, during the Thirty Years’ War, a storehouse for lard, giving locals the name Schmalzhäusle.

Late nineteenth-century restoration by Ferdinand Thrän added neo-Gothic elements to the older fabric. During World War Two, the crypt became an air raid shelter. A faded Last Judgment wall painting may preserve a trace of its original construction.