Grossmünster
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The Grossmünster ("great minster") is one of the three major churches of Zürich, the others being the Fraumünster and St. Peter. The core of the present building goes back to a church commissioned by Charles the Fat around 1100, completed around 1220. It was a monastery church, vying for precedence with the Fraumünster across the Limmat throughout the Middle Ages. According to legend, the monastery was founded by Charlemagne, whose horse fell to its knees at the spot of the burial of Felix and Regula, Zürich's patron saints. The legend thus expresses a claim of seniority over the Fraumünster, which was founded by Louis the German, Charlemagne's grandson.
The two towers were completed between 1487 and 1492. Originally, they had high wooden steeples, which were destroyed by fire in 1781, following which the present neo-Gothic tops were added. Richard Wagner is known to have mocked the church's appearance as that of two pepper dispensers. Huldrych Zwingli initiated the Reformation in Switzerland from his office at the Grossmünster, starting in 1520. [Old City Plan of Church:[link]]
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