Einsiedeln

Commune in the canton of Schwyz, Switzerland, 33 km/21 mi southeast of Zürich; population (1995) 11,700. Pilgrims visit a Benedictine abbey founded in about 934 on the site of the cell of St Meinrad, who was murdered in 861.

Einsiedeln became an independent principality of the Holy Roman Empire. The church (1719–26) is one of the finest examples of the baroque period, with an image of the Black Virgin and elaborate wrought-iron gates. The abbey library has 100,000 volumes and 1,300 manuscripts, some from the 8th–12th centuries. The physician Paracelsus was born here in 1493, and the religious reformer Ulrich Zwingli was parish priest of Einsiedeln 1516–18. Its inhabitants are mainly German-speaking Roman Catholics.