Digitalisation works at the Post-Augustinian Monastery Complex in Zagan
June 8, 2022
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Due to the richness of the historical collections stored in the post-Augustinian monastery complex in Zagan (monastery buildings and the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary), we had to divide the digitisation work into several stages.
The first stage was the magnificent monastery library, located on the first floor of the east wing. It consists of two rooms, lower and upper, covered by flattened domes decorated with frescoes by Georg Wilhelm Neunhertz. In large compositions, the artist depicted the allegory of the Church of Victory, in the lower section, and the adoration of the Holy Trinity by the canons of the Rule of St Augustine, in the upper section. The library’s furnishings, in addition to the carved larch bookcases, include two globes from the early 17th century – of the earth and sky, from the workshop of the Dutch cartographer Willem Blaeu. The foundation team digitally developed the interior (gigapixel photography, gigapanoramas, 3D virtual walk, 3D models and sound films) using top technology.
We then moved on to the parish museum, located in a wing of the monastery, where valuable remains of the monastery’s furnishings are gathered in a small space. Particularly noteworthy are the 27 oval portraits of abbots, by Christian Conrad the Younger, executed in oil on canvas. There is also a large collection of liturgical paraments. To digitise this collection, we used a shadowless tent in addition to optical scanners and mid-format cameras.
We used a 3D camera to develop a virtual walk-through in the two aforementioned rooms of the monastery.
We will come here again to devote ourselves fully to the digitisation work inside the magnificent church, where the in-depth restoration of the main altar has just been completed. However, we must wait for the completion of the restoration work on the entire organ prospectus in the organ loft. This makes it impossible to take gigapanoramas of the interior and gigapixel photographs of selected monuments, in particular the magnificent 6 x 3 m fresco „Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane” by Jeremias Joseph Knechtel.