Marienberg Abbey
The highest Benedictine monastery in Europe
Above the village of Burgusio (Burgeis), in the upper Val Venosta, at about 1,340 metres, the white mass of the Abbey of Monte Maria (Marienberg) stands out against the woods and mountains: it is the highest Benedictine monastery in Europe, still inhabited by a community of monks who live according to the rule of Saint Benedict, "pray and work". Founded in the twelfth century by the lords of Tarasp, the abbey was rebuilt in baroque style in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but it preserves extraordinary traces of its medieval origins.
Its greatest treasure is the crypt, under the church, decorated around 1160 with a cycle of Romanesque frescoes of exceptional quality and freshness: a Christ in majesty surrounded by angels with large wings and rich robes, the saints, and the heavenly Jerusalem, painted in intense colours, blue, red and gold, which have been preserved almost intact because the crypt was walled up and forgotten for centuries, and was only fully restored in the 1980s. Considered among the most important Romanesque paintings in the Alpine area, they can be seen in the abbey museum, which also tells the story and life of the monastery, with the possibility of seeing the crypt through a window or, on certain occasions, with a guided tour. The abbey church has a Romanesque portal and a baroque interior. From the abbey, the view sweeps over the Val Venosta and the Ortles. Next to the abbey, the monks run a farm and a shop with their products.
Tip: combine the abbey with Glorenza and the walk along the Waalwege, the irrigation channel paths of the Val Venosta.
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