The church commonly known as the 'Jesuit church', since 1777 a university church, is dedicated to the Holy Trinity; founded in 1627 in place of an earlier church and completed after about thirty years, its inspirational models were the Salzburg Cathedral and the Church of the Gesù in Rome. Due to lack of funds, the bell towers were only raised in 1901; before that, a wooden bell tower persisted on the right. Four bells were placed on it: two by Hans Christoph Löffler and two by Barthlma Reinhart. With the building of your bell towers, three of these, except the current Silberglocke, were transferred to the hospital church in Innsbruck, while seven new bells were cast by Chiappani of Trento, unfortunately requisitioned as early as 1916 for the First World War. Until 1959, the Silberglocke was the church's only bell, the year in which the Herz-Jesuglocke, also known as the Schützenglocke because it was donated by the Tyrolean riflemen (Schützen), was cast. In 2019, for the 350th anniversary of the University, two bells from the Grassmayr Foundry in Innsbruck were added; finally, in 2021, another bell also cast by Grassmayr was added and dedicated to Peter Canisius (1521-1597), Jesuit founder of the Jesuit College in Innsbruck and patron saint of the diocese.
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The church has a concert of five bells distributed in the two towers from 1901:
☛ Left tower:
1. Sacred Heart/Riflemen Bell, es° kg9050 - Grassmayr Glockengießerei (Innsbruck), 1959.
☛ Right-hand tower:
2. Canisius Bell, des' kg 1808 - Grassmayr Glockengießerei (Innsbruck), 2021;
3. Silver Bell, es' kg 1300 - Hans Christof Löffler, 1579;
4. Martyrs' Bell, f' kg 1092 - Grassmayr Glockengießerei (Innsbruck), 2019;
5. Mary Magdalene Bell, as' kg 618 - Grassmayr Glockengießerei (Innsbruck), 2019.
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Presentation of the individual bells and mention of the Saturday evening mass, with the three Grassmayr bells of the right-hand tower and the solo bell. Many thanks to Fr. Bernhard, who allowed us to see these bells, and to sacristan Conrad, who led us on a beautiful tour of the church steeples, roof and dome!
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Official website of the church: jesuitenkirche-innsbruck.at/at/
Website of the Italian Bell Association: www.campanologia.org
For further information: bellsalerno@gmail.com
Some material was taken from the official website and the Jesuitenkirche bulletin. The photo of the two smaller bells comes from the website of the Diocese of Innsbruck (www.dibk.at/Meldungen/Jesuite....
©Ermenegildo Guerra, 26/08/23
USE PROHIBITED: The multimedia material in this video is the intellectual property of the author