Duke Wilhelm V built St. Michael's to prove that Bavaria was the most Catholic country in Europe. At its heart was to stand his own tomb, the largest monument in the land, and the final argument of the Counter-Reformation in stone and bronze.
The sculptors were hired. The bronzes were cast. And then Wilhelm spent himself into bankruptcy, was forced to abdicate, and the monument was never assembled. His son, Maximilian I, who would go on to lead the Catholic League through the Thirty Years' War, took the finished pieces and put them to other uses across the city.
Almost all of it is still standing in Munich, in plain sight. Most people walk past several of them every day without knowing what they are.
Two and a half hours through Munich, finding the pieces, and at the end we put them back together.
Where the pieces ended up is the tour. Printing it here would be like printing the last page of a detective novel on the cover. They are found one at a time, on foot, in the order they were taken.
A description written in 1592 setting out every element the monument was to have. It is the only complete account of a thing that was never assembled, and it is read aloud before anyone takes a step. After that, the work is looking.
In the crypt, with the duke who ordered the monument and could not pay for it, and a few feet away, the son who took it apart.