The Choir Vault of the Berner Cathedral

16 September 2021

The choir vault of the cathedral (Münster) in Bern dates back to 1517. The names of the master craftsman Peter Pfister and the Bernese reformer Niklaus Manuel are immortalised in the stone.

Eighty-five larger-than-life figures of saints adorn the keystones of the marvellous vaulting, with which the three-aisle end, the two narrow adjoining bays and the two broad western sections are interwoven to form a spatial and architectural unity.

The abundance and quality of the sculpture are also exceptional. The colour settings of the figurative keystones are almost in the same condition that they were half a millennium ago.

It makes the saint’s heaven, der himmlische-Hof, (the heavenly court) above the Bern choir, one of the most significant and most valuable holdings of late medieval sculpture of its time in Europe.

(Source and further information: www.bernermuensterstiftung.ch).