Chiostro del Duomo di Bressanone

The cloister of Bressanone Cathedral combines Romanesque arcades with Gothic vaults and a cycle of frescoes painted across the fifteenth century.

Why it matters

The cloister linked the cathedral with the bishop’s residence, chapter house, school and baptistery, and served for centuries as a burial ground for cathedral clergy. Its fifteen arcades were painted at different times by different artists, mostly during the fifteenth century, with each bay decorated as a memorial. The paintings form an important record of late medieval Alpine art.

What to notice

Paired Romanesque columns and round arches preserve the twelfth- and thirteenth-century structure; the fourteenth-century raising added Gothic cross-rib vaults. Arcade V, dated 1472, includes a Resurrection by Master Leonhard von Brixen with Old Testament scenes of Jonah, Samson and David, as well as Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Christ. Arcade III depicts Eleasar’s self-sacrifice beneath a stylised war elephant, painted with a horse-like body and trunk. Arcade XI preserves the Romanesque doorway to the cathedral transept and a seventeenth-century image of Christ at the flagellation column beneath a vault depicting the Works of Mercy.

Context and history

The cloister served the cathedral district's daily machinery: processions, study, commerce on occasion, and above all burial. Tomb slabs once set into the floor now hang on the wall of the connecting passage, and the southeast corner was deliberately left unpainted because no one was buried there; the cathedral school stood on that spot, with students gathering and merchants occasionally selling their goods. The painting campaign gathered pace in the early 1400s, with local workshops covering arcades X through XIII around 1400–1420, and culminated in the work of Master Leonhard von Brixen, the most prolific contributor, to whom at least five arcades are attributed (II, V, VII, XIV and XV), including bays dated 1455, 1464 and 1472. A Nativity fresco removed from the west wall of arcade IV now hangs in the Diocesan Museum, a reminder that these walls and the Hofburg collections belong to one story.