Freising Cathedral was an important ecclesiastical center in the early and high Middle Ages, and the secular dominion of the prince-bishopric extended as far as South Tyrol. The first church was built around 715, in the following centuries the cathedral was rebuilt and rebuilt several times. Today's appearance inside is essentially baroque: for the 1000th anniversary of the cathedral, the Asam brothers redesigned the interior in 1724. The crypt was created with the Romanesque new building in the 12th century.
In 1930, Josef Hofmiller, teacher at the neighboring cathedral grammar school (which was later named after him), a connoisseur of sacred architecture and a great friend of the old Bavarian way of life, correctly described the moment one enters the cathedral:
"On the top of the eight marble steps that lead down to the nave, we stand spellbound: the magnificence of the first impression is overwhelming. With a single glance, the eye embraces the detailed grandeur of a vast basilica space, unbroken by any transept, along the two-dozen higher Pillar arcades and gallery arches on top of each other on the right and left, up the magnificent thirteen steps to the priest's choir in full width of the nave to the shell of the dark gold high altar with the triumphal painting after Rubens, at our head the huge vault of the central nave with the colossal frescoes of the Asam."