The Stiftskirche is an inner-city church in Stuttgart and the main church of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg. Excavations found a small Romanesque church of the tenth or eleventh century. In 1240 a Romanesque church with three naves and two towers was built, apparently by the Counts of Württemberg. A Gothic chancel followed from 1321 to 1347, and a Late Gothic nave was added in the second half of the fifteenth century.
After the Reformation, pictures and altars were removed in 1534. The reformer Johannes Brenz was buried under the chancel in 1570, and rulers were buried in a vault added in 1608, until 1677. The church has eleven bells, the oldest from 1285.
Bombs heavily damaged it in 1944, and it was rebuilt in the 1950s with a modern interior. The latest major renovation, from 1999 to 2003, was designed by Bernhard Hirche.

Comments