• Pinterest
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
Italian Notes
  • HOME
  • PEOPLE & PLACES
    • Abruzzo
    • Basilicata
    • Calabria
    • Campania
    • Emilia-Romagna
    • Friuli-Venezia Giulia
    • Lazio
    • Liguria
    • Lombardia-Lombardy
    • Marche
    • Molise
    • Piemonte-Piedmont
    • Puglia – Apulia
    • Sicilia
    • Toscana-Tuscany
    • Trentino-Alto Adige – Trentino-South Tyrol
    • Umbria
    • Veneto
  • FOOD
    • Antipasti
    • Primi piatti
    • Secondi piatti
    • Dolci
  • PR/ADVERTISING
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Musing over Merano Cathedral

What’s so interesting about Merano Cathedral? A Gothic hall church dedicated to St. Nicholas on the market square just south of the Alps? Here are 3 suggestions on what to look for.



Booking.com


I’m not a religious person, but I’m fascinated by churches as cultural and historical monuments, and the stories they tell. Take Merano Cathedral at the end of Laubengasse as an example. A massive Gothic structure erected centuries before long the wellness industry and apple strudel made Merano famous, and designed with a few inconspicuous details that I find interesting.

The church dates back to 1302, and the construction stretched over two centuries. With a building site right on the market square, the ambitions, aspirations and piety of Merano was immediately evident to travelers and traders. They could see a stone structure much larger than the surrounding – now perished – clay and timber houses. Merano Cathedral was constructed using the latest building technology and architectural trends such as ribbed vaults, pointed arches, blind arcades and small pinnacles were incorporated in the design. A typical Gothic hall church with all the characteristic Gothic features.

At the same time Merano Cathedral has a few outstanding aspects – or features I – at least – haven’t noticed elsewhere.

Merano Cathedral

Merano Cathedral facing out to the market square.

Built-in tombstones

Around the front door of Merano Cathedral the facade is ‘decorated’ with headstones, which seems mildly bizarre. Influential people at the time of construction have wanted to obtain immortality by combining tombs with a the place of worship. And they didn’t want to wait until people had entered the church to make their presence felt, but had to get right up in the face of people passing by as well. A little too outgoing for my taste.

Frescoed exterior

On the exterior walls of Merano Cathedral there are several colourful frescos, a hallmark I don’t recall seeing on churches further south in Italy. I’m not sufficiently strong in Biblical narratives to identify the parables depicted, but the huge fresco on the wall facing the marketplace could well be Saint Christopher helping children cross a river. It’s definitely a lovely painting with vigorous strokes and vivid colours in verdigris, yellow and carmine, even though it doesn’t compare to the celebrated masterpieces found in other Italian churches.

St. Nicholas on Merano cathedral

A slim statue of St. Nicholas observes the dealings in the market square.

St. Nicholas without a purse

A sentry box on the facade shelters a long slim figure of a saint, probably St. Nicholas considering the church dedication and the attire of the figure who is dressed up in with mitre and a crosier rod and staff to shepherd the believers. The most ingratiating thing about this figure in my opinion is the hand sign. St. Nicholas’ index finger is pointing up and it could be an admonition, a sign victory and a christogram as one of the first gang signals in religious history. With powerful body language like that, it doesn’t matter that St. Nicholas seems to have lost his traditional purse.

Which reminds me not to leave Laubengasse without taking a look around the altmodish, Germanic shops and buying at least some speck and grappa to take home.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
Maps were disabled by the visitor on this site. Click to open the map in a new window.
0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Followon TwitterSubscribeto RSS Feed
Discover Rome - Italian Notes

Discover Rome

Discover Florence - Italian Notes

Discover Florence

Discover Venice - Italian Notes

Discover Venice

Discover Puglia - Italian Notes

Discover Puglia

Discover Sicily - Italian Notes

Discover Sicily

Discover Piedmont - Italian Notes

Discover Piedmont

Ragù of lamb with cicoria and pecorinoPhoto of Ragù of lamb with cicoria and pecorinoPhoto of egg white pancakeEgg white pancake
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept settingsHide notification onlySettings

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Accept settingsHide notification only