Saint Jacob’s Jesuit Church and Monastery

On the site of a former Augustinian monastery and later imperial poorhouse, the Jesuits erected a monastic building after 1597, followed by a new church, which they set back from the street, thereby creating a small square in front of the façade. The church was designed as a post-Tridentine congregational hall with chapels, built in the South German tradition as a church with interior wall pillars. An octagonal chapel of St. Francis Xavier, richly decorated with stucco work, was added between 1667 and 1670. In 1701, the builder Francesco Ferrata raised the nave and added galleries above the chapels. At that time, the church also received a new two-storey façade articulated with pilasters. In 1773, the Jesuit order was dissolved, and the monastic buildings—including the richly decorated library—were demolished following a fire that broke out a year later. The current exterior appearance is the result of reconstruction after the 1895 earthquake.

Dr. Matej Klemenčič and the parish administrator, Fr. Tomaž Mikuš, SJ, will guide us through the Jesuit Church of St. James.