The Brunswick Monument is a mausoleum built in 1879 in Geneva to commemorate the life of Charles II, Duke of Brunswick (1804–1873). He bequeathed his fortune to the city of Geneva in exchange for a monument to be built in his name, specifying that it be a replica of the Scaliger Tombs in Verona, Italy.
Linguist, musician and knight, the Duke of Brunswick, Charles d’Este-Guelph, was a unique individual indeed. Born in 1804, he was expelled from his duchy in 1830, located in what is now Germany. He fled into exile to various European cities including Paris, where he made a fortune and then moved to Geneva. In 1873, he died and bequeathed his immense fortune to Geneva in exchange for a beautiful funeral and a monument to his name.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.