Kloster

The former Cistercian convent of Schönau stands beside the Saale in the quiet village of Schönau, part of Gemünden am Main in Lower Franconia. Founded in 1189 by Philipp von Thüngen and the bishop Gottfried of Pisemberg, it housed noble Cistercian nuns for nearly four centuries. After plunder in the Bauernkrieg and again in the Second Margrave War, the last abbess surrendered the house in 1564 and it stood empty until 1699. The Minorites restored the ruins under Kilian Stauffer, raising walls by about 1.8 m and renewing the interior in the early 18th-century Baroque style. In 1704 the relics of the catacomb saints Viktor and Antonin were brought from Rome, drawing pilgrims throughout the 18th century. The church’s surviving Gothic vaulting from the 1270s and 1280s still shows the original layout of choir and nave. Inside, the high altar fills the entire east wall with red and grey stucco-marble columns and a painting of the Immaculate Conception. Side altars by Oswald Onghers and a black-marble altar of the Sorrowful Mother stand along the nave. A late Gothic winged altarpiece from the first building survives in the former summer choir, together with painted panels by Georg Sebastian Urlaub and a cycle of the Way of the Cross. The north side of the church now links to a modern three-winged convent, and a simple pilgrim house stands nearby.