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Basel Minster

Basel Minster (German: Basler Münster) is a religious building in the Swiss city of Basel, originally a Catholic cathedral and today a Reformed Protestant church.

The original cathedral was built between 1019 and 1500 in Romanesque and Gothic styles. The late Romanesque building, destroyed by the 1356 Basel earthquake, was rebuilt by Johannes Gmünd, who was at the same time employed for building the Freiburg Münster. Ulrich von Ensingen, architect of the towers at the Ulm Minster and the Strasbourg Cathedral, extended the building from 1421. Hans Nußdorf completed the southern Martinstower (after St.Martin) in 1500.


One of the main landmarks and tourist attractions of Basel, it adds definition to the cityscape with its red sandstone architecture and coloured roof tiles, its two slim towers and the cross-shaped intersection of the main roof. The Swiss inventory of cultural property of national and regional significance lists the Münster as a heritage site of national significance.[1]

Erasmus of Rotterdam

Jacob Bernoulli

In the choir passage is the sarcophagus of Queen Anne of Habsburg and her son Charles. She had married in 1254 as Gertrude of Hohenberg the future King Rudolf of Habsburg[6] and died in 1281 in Vienna. From there, her body was transferred to Basel. The bones found in her grave (a woman, a child, a man) were transferred in 1770 to Saint Blaise Abbey, Black Forest; later on to Saint Paul's Abbey, Lavanttal.

Except for some text in the introductory paragraph, this article is a translation of the .

German language article

(PDF). , Universität Freiburg seminar paper, Oct. 1979, 38 pages. Retrieved 28 March 2014.

"Baugeschichte des Basler Münsters"