Liebfrauenkirche (Church of Our Lady)

First Gothic church in Germany (1235-1260), erected on the side of a Roman church. The south part of the Roman double church was torn down around 1200 and completely replaced by the Early Gothic Church of Our Lady (Liebfrauen). Nothing above the surface is Roman any more, but there are extensive excavations (not open to the public) underneath the church and several of the Gothic pillars stand on top of Roman column foundations. The medieval church, however, was no longer a long, three-aisled structure, but a church-in-the-round, whose cross-shaped vaulting with four corresponding portals in rounded niches was completed by eight rounded altar niches so that the floor plan resembles a twelve-petaled rose, a symbol of the Virgin Mary, the rosa mystica, and reminiscent of the twelve tribes of Israel and the Twelve Apostles. The apostles as well as the twelve articles of the Apostle's Creed are painted on the twelve supporting columns, completely visible only from one spot marked by a black stone. The intriguing optics are matched by splendid acoustics.

On the way out, the visitor passes stone masons' marks and graffiti from seven centuries, the elaborate west portal, the Bishop's Palace, the Kesselstatt Palace, and the gate marking the end of the Cathedral Close.