St. John’s Chapel, Ranui

The little church of St. John in Ranui stands alone in a green meadow at the head of the Villnöss valley, in South Tyrol, with the jagged pale towers of the Geisler peaks of the Dolomites rising directly behind it. The composition is almost too perfect, a white baroque chapel with an onion-domed bell tower, a dark ridge of forest and then the sheer grey walls of the Geisler group catching the evening light.

The chapel was built in 1744 and belongs to the Ranui farm, an old estate that was once a hunting residence. An inscription on the façade names Michael von Jenner, a mine owner, as founder, although he had died in 1723; it was probably Joseph Anton von Jenner, a relative by marriage, who built it and gave the credit to his ancestor as an act of piety. The building is a simple single nave under a steep shingle roof, with a bell tower on the north-east side whose copper onion dome is topped by a star. Its dedication is to St. John of Nepomuk, the Bohemian saint whose life is told on its walls.

Inside, the barrel vault and walls carry nine paintings of scenes from the saint's life, probably by Nikolaus Weis. The jewel of the interior is the main altar of marbled wood, with an altarpiece by Franz Sebald Unterberger of the Fiemme valley showing the Virgin enthroned with the Christ Child and St. John of Nepomuk. The chapel has been painted in watercolour by the bishop Reinhold Stecher and appeared on an Austrian Christmas stamp in 2009. It stands on private farmland, and the surrounding meadows are fenced, so the view is best enjoyed from the path.

Getting there

The chapel is near St. Magdalena in the Villnöss (Funes) valley, about 10 km in a straight line from Brixen (Bressanone), the nearest larger town, in the Eisack valley. The nearest airport is Bolzano Airport (BZO), about 36 km away. The valley road leads up from the Eisack valley to St. Magdalena, from where the chapel lies at the foot of the Geisler peaks.