Bonn Minster

The oldest ancient memorial site north of the Alps. Christian martyrs have been worshiped here for 1350 years. As a whole, the cathedral church and the cloister still stand before us today as the Romanesque and Baroque periods have characterized them: as one of the most beautiful and at the same time most important testimonies of ecclesiastical art in the Rhineland.
Distance to the bike path: 2.5 km
Opening hours daily from 7 to 19 o'clock.

The old collegiate church was demolished around 1050 and made way for the new building in the Romanesque style. This new building was one of the first large church complexes in the Rhineland, a three-aisled cross basilica.

The transverse arms of the building, which started from an almost square crossing, only slightly protruded from the side aisles. The basilica had a double choir: a long choir above a three-aisled crypt in the east, under which there was a crypt, and a west choir, also with a crypt. In addition to the crypt, parts of the eastern crypt and the high choir as well as the western building have been preserved from the 11th century building.

In the crypt there are three stone sarcophagi and another brick-walled burial. If the previous building of the cathedral was based on these graves, this no longer applies to the new building. Due to its west-east orientation, the central axis of the building is now perpendicular to the graves in which the relics of the Bonn martyrs Cassius, Florentius and companions are said to have lain. In 1166, Provost Gerhard von Are had the relics placed in precious shrines, which found their place on the high altar.
Cloister

It was Gerhard von Are who had the church expanded to include the choir square with the two flank towers and the richly structured eastern apse. This extension was inaugurated in 1153. The cloister on the south side of the church is also thanks to the building work of this provost.

Towards the end of the 12th century, the choir house was provided with ribbed vaults and around 1200 the transepts with five-sided apse ends, the crossing and an octagonal crossing tower crowned by a folded tent roof were built. This tower is now 81.4 meters high. He wears a pointed helmet from the 16th century.

At the beginning of the 13th century, the nave was rebuilt in the Rhenish transitional style, with the side aisles widened and the western apse redesigned. The exact date of the new performance of the nave is controversial among art historians and varies between the years 1220 and 1240; The only plausible source from the chronicle of the Floreffe monastery, which records the destruction of the old nave by fire in 1239, points to the latter year.

In 1583–1589 and 1689 the cathedral was significantly destroyed. It was restored in 1883–1889, 1934 and after bomb damage in the Second World War.

Bonn's largest church building houses the remains of the two Roman soldiers Cassius and Florentius.