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Appenzell castle was built in 1563 as an elegant mansion the doctor Antoni Löw. Antoni was an enthusiastic supporter of the Protestant Reformation in Appenzell. In 1584 he was captured, judged and sentenced to death by the local Catholics for slandering a priest. After his death the castle was taken by the city and given to the Franciscans. They remained in the castle for almost a century, until 1682 when they moved into the newly completed St. Mary of the Angels. When the Franciscans moved out, the castle was sold to Antoni Speck who owned it until his death in 1708. It then passed to Johann Baptist Fortunat and then into the possession of the Sutter family.
On 15 February 1875 Doctor Anton Alfred Sutter became the sole owner of the castle. He established his practice in the castle, leading to it being known as the 'Doctor's House'. Today the castle remains the property of the Sutter family.
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.