Altstadt Abbey

The Altstadt Monastery (also known as Hammelburg Monastery) is a monastery of the Franciscan Observants in Hammelburg, Bavaria, in the Diocese of Würzburg, located southwest of the town halfway up the Saalecker Berg.

Dedicated to Maria Immaculata, the monastery was founded in 1649 by the Thuringian Observant Province of St. Elisabeth; it was initially a hospice and became a convent in 1655. It was spared from secularization. From 1926 to 1971, the monastery buildings housed a boys' seminary of the Franciscans, then briefly a police academy. Since 1980, the Bavarian Music Academy has used part of the monastery's premises.

Chapel Way of the Cross

In addition to the monastery itself, the Chapel Way of the Cross around the monastery is worth seeing. The Way of the Cross, laid out in 1733 with its 14 station houses, was a special feature in the Prince-Bishopric of Fulda and soon served as a model for further sacred landscapes in the Thuringian province, on the Volkersberg and on the Frauenberg and Kalvarienberg in Fulda. The same artists who worked in Hammelburg were also active there: Johann Jakob Faulstieg (1697–1768), a sculptor from Hammelburg, and his assistant, Brother Wenzeslaus Marx (1708–1773) from Leitmeritz.