St. Maria im Kapitol

St. Maria im Kapitol (St. Mary's in the Capitol) is an 11th-century Romanesque church located in the Kapitol-Viertel in the old town of Cologne, Germany.

The name “im Kapitol“ refers to the Roman temple for the Capitoline Triad that was built on today’s site of the church in the first century.

[2] Measuring 100 m x 40 m and encompassing 4,000 square metres of internal space, St. Maria is the largest of the Romanesque churches in Cologne.

[3] A temple to the Capitoline triad stood upon the small hill in the southernmost part of the first century Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium that should later become the site of St. Maria im Kapitol.

[5][6] In particular, the nave, which still exists today, stands on the foundations of this temple, which provided the basic shape of the church before it was expanded to the west and east.

Pepin of Herstal, who effectively ruled the empire after becoming mayor of all three Frankish kingdoms in 687, lived in Cologne for a period of time.

and his sister Ida, abbess of St. Maria im Kapitol, now a women's monastery, initiated construction of a new church.

At the beginning of the 13th century, the east conche received a double-shell wall structure with a walkway on the inside and a dwarf gallery on the outside.