Dornach Monastery

6 December 2021

The monastery in Dornach (Solothurn canton) was built in 1674-1676. Maria Magdalena von Roll (1604-1672) donated the money for its construction through a bequest in 1672.

It was the only Capuchin monastery in the Birseck, the region of the Birs river basin in today’s Birseck and Solothurn cantons. The last monks left in 1990. The Dornach Monastery Foundation then took over the complex.

The monument commemorating the Battle of Dornach in the Swabian War (Schwabenkrieg) in 1499 is next to the monastery. It is, therefore, more than symbolic that on 27 July 1999, the 500th anniversary of the battle, the canton of Solothurn transferred the donation certificate from 1672 to the foundation.

The nearby Beinhaus of the monument contains the skulls and bones of Eidgenossen and Habsburger, the main opposing sides in the Schwabenkrieg,  ‘Die Edlen müssen bei den Bauern liegen’.

(Source: www.klosterdornach.ch).