Marienberg Abbey

Marienberg Abbey (Abtei Marienberg/Abbazia Monte Maria)
Marienberg Abbey
Basic information
Location	Mals, Italy
Affiliation	Roman Catholic
Province	South Tyrol
Architectural description
Architectural type	Church
Architectural style	Romanesque/Baroque
Groundbreaking	8c

Marienberg Abbey (German: Abtei Marienberg; Italian: Abbazia Monte Maria) is a Benedictine abbey in Mals, Vinschgau in South Tyrol, northern Italy. It was founded in 1149 or 1150 by Ulrich von Tarasp and other nobles.

It has maintained a long tradition of education and, at 1,340 m, it is Europe’s highest abbey. It retains a Baroque style with Romanesque elements, and has some well-maintained frescos.

The history of the foundation goes back to Charlemagne, who established a Benedictine monastery between 780 and 786 near Taufers, a town which on the Vinschgau side of the border with Switzerland, in Val Müstair (monastery valley).

Sometime after 880, the Benedictine monastery was dissolved and re-established as a convent for both sexes. About two hundred years later there was a reorganization, when Eberhard of Tarasp built the monastery of Schuls in the Inn valley in the Engadin for the male portion of the community, while nuns remained at Taufers in the Adige valley. After the monastery at Schuls had been rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1131, Ulrich von Tarasp called monks from the German monastery of Ottobeuren to revive it; the additional numbers made it possible to raise the community from a priory to an abbey. In 1149 or 1150 the community was re-settled on the hill near the village of Burgeis, under the name of Marienberg.