The story
Inside St. Peter am Perlach hangs a painting of the Virgin standing on a crescent moon, calmly working the knots out of a long ribbon. One angel hands her the tangled end, and another receives it smooth. Mary Untier of Knots was painted around 1700 by Johann Georg Melchior Schmidtner, an Augsburg painter, and given to the church by Hieronymus Ambrosius Langenmantel, a canon from one of the city's old patrician families. Tradition ties it to his grandparents' marriage, said to have been rescued in the early 1600s through the prayers of a Jesuit, Jakob Rem, although researchers point out that the story was only connected to the picture in the late 20th century.
The church itself is one of the oldest in Augsburg, a Romanesque basilica going back to the 11th century, standing at the foot of the Perlach Tower beside the Town Hall.
The picture's fame travelled a long way from here. Jorge Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis, received it on a Christmas card from a German nun and spread copies around Buenos Aires, where the devotion took root. In 2017 he said he had never actually been to Augsburg.
