Date

Circa 1910

The sculptures of the Last Judgment were the only statues in the Münster to survive the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation. The 47 large free-standing statues are replicas (the originals are in the Bern History Museum), and the 170 smaller figures are all original. They were all sculpted by Erhard Küng. The minster, dedicated to St Vincent (originally the parish church, later made collegiate), was planned by Matthäus Ensinger from 1421 to replace a 12th century predecessor. It was largely completed by about 1540 by successive architects, including Vincenz Ensinger and Erhard Küng. The upper part of the tower was finished only in 1889-1893. It is an aisled, Late Gothic basilica with a richly sculpted portal of the Last Judgment by Küng, interior statuary (1517), important stained glass (1441-1460) and choir-stalls (1522), and is the outstanding Late Gothic building in Switzerland.