Magnus of Füssen, missionary and dragon slayer, died in the mid-8th century. When his uncorrupted corpse was discovered in the 9th century, the cleric was canonized and St. Mang’s Abbey founded. The abbey was home to a community of Benedictine monks for a thousand years, until it was dissolved in the German mediatisation at the end of the Holy Roman Empire.

I am happy to announce that, in addition to tours to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles, I now also guide private tours at the Füssen Town Museum. Contact me for booking details.

Today, the former abbey houses the town’s administrative center, its library, and museum. Exhibits in the Füssen Town Museum reveal the history of the abbey and of the town, beginning with the town’s establishment, in the 1st century, as an important trade center situated on the Lech river and the Roman road Via Claudia Augusta. Displays of lutes, violins, and organs showcase Füssen’s importance as an instrument-making center of Europe throughout the medieval period, and a series of expositions and annotated photographs documents its entry into the industrial age.

On the museum tour, we explore the exhibits and the building itself, which is as much a historical artifact as the antiquities exposed within it. We delve into the excavated ruins of the monastery cloister. We discover its library and refectory; we marvel at the stucco sculptures and frescoes in the lavish Emperor’s Hall, and in the 17th-century St. Anne’s Chapel, we look upon the oldest existing Danse Macabre in Bavaria.