"The cathedral Maria Himmelfahrt, also cathedral parish church, Bozner cathedral or propsteikirche Maria Himmelfahrt, is the city parish church of the South Tyrolean capital Bozen and bishop church of the Roman Catholic diocese Bozen-Brixen. While the bishop resided in Bolzano since 1964, his cathedra and the cathedral chapter remained in Bressanone; the Assumption of the Virgin Mary thus functions as a concathedral next to the cathedral of Bressanone.
The first parish church of the Assumption of Mary of Bolzano was consecrated in 1180 according to the so-called "Bozner Chronik", an annalistic record of the 14th century, and was built in Romanesque style. Legend has it that a Bolzano carriage driver found a miraculous image of Our Lady here. This Dear Lady of the Moss is said to have lain in the marshland of the Eisack, whose riverbed was then much closer to today's cathedral. The statue, which dates back to the 12th century, is now in the baroque chapel of grace behind the high altar of the church. The medieval church was built on the remains of an early Christian basilica from the 6th century.
In 1195 - on the occasion of an exchange of goods between the Upper Bavarian Imperial Monastery Tegernsee and the Episcopal Church of Trento - Rudolf, who was first mentioned as a priest of Bolzano in 1181, was called the parish priest (Pleban) of Bolzano. In 1259 Count Meinhard II brought the church bailiwick to himself; from this time the parish church also functioned as a memorial church for the Tyrolean-Gorizian rulers and from 1363 for the Habsburg princes. This Austrian anniversary ("the jarttæg ... the one created from Austria") was celebrated by the entire priesthood of the so-called "German part" of the Trent diocese after a regulation of 1435 in the octave after the Assumption of Mary.
Around 1300 the church was rebuilt in the late Gothic style in order to meet the increased demands of the demographically and structurally rapidly growing territorial city of Bolzano. This new building was completed in 1519 with the construction of the late Gothic tower according to plans by the Augsburg cathedral master builder Burkhard Engelberg and Hans Lutz von Schussenried.[6] The late Gothic sandstone pulpit with the reliefs of the four church fathers and the four evangelist symbols, which was partially destroyed during the Allied bombing raids in 1943/44 and rebuilt in 1949, dates from the same period.
From the middle of the 15th century (1453/60) a land register and legal book has been preserved by the then church provost Christof Hasler the Younger, in which the comprehensive land ownership of the parish church and its legal titles are recorded. The manuscript is kept by the Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg, where it reached in 1871.
In 1717, at the suggestion of Prince-Bishop Johann Michael von Spaur, a chapter of the monastery was erected, which from 1723 was led by an infulierten provost. On ceremonial occasions he wore the infel, ring and staff of an abbot. The last (infulierte) provost of Bozen was Monsignor Josef Kalser, the most famous canon is Michael Gamper. The collegiate chapter was last expanded in 1951. The dean and priest of Bozen Josef Rier (until 1989), appointed in 1967, was appointed canon of honour in the 1980s. The parish church, the St. Nicholas Church directly to the south and the parsonage (Propstei building) were badly hit in 1943/44 by Allied air raids on the Alpine foothills operating zone. While only the foundation walls of the Nikolauskirche remain, the parish church was restored. In today's cathedral, however, many frescoes, the colour windows and the altarpiece have been lost.
During the reconstruction work, the remains of the already mentioned early Christian church were discovered.
The church tower had survived the bombing raids unscathed, but had to be restored from the mid-1970s onwards. The work cost more than 1.03 million euros and was completed in 1986.
In December 2008 some of the stained glass roof tiles had come loose. In spring 2009, a working group was established to finance the roof renovation (approx. 850,000 euros), which was completed in 2010. The state of South Tyrol and the Südtiroler Sparkasse Foundation supported the work."
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