The painter Christoph Helfenrieder in Merano

Appendix.

Contribution to art history.

Christoph Helfenrieder, of whom the parish church in Merano still possesses an altarpiece representing the three saints Fabian, Sebastian, and Roch raising their gaze in holy contemplation to heaven, where the Most Holy Trinity appears to them in glory, lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century. From his life, only the following has become known to us. He was a court painter in Munich and married an ideal of female beauty there, Ursula Tannauer. In the heat of surging anger and jealousy, H. once killed an officer in Munich who frequently visited his wife, visits he had previously forbidden. After committing the murder, H. left his homeland and went with his wife to Schnals in the Vinschgau in order to live more in hiding. Here he created many paintings for the Carthusian monastery that was once located there. In the second decade of the same century, we already find him in Merano. For in 1618 a son was born to him there, who received the name Johann Valentin at holy baptism. That H. was very satisfied with his present residence we gather from the negative answer he gave to all proposals made to him from Munich to return there. He was promised total oblivion regarding the past, safe conduct, along with many other advantages. H. died in Merano on October 26, 1635, during a plague-like illness spreading there. The famous painter Martin Knoller said of his paintings, "they are true masterpieces and deserve to be especially esteemed."