The ''Tellskapelle'' ("Tell's chapel") is located on the ''Tellsplatte'' or ''Tellenplatte'' ("Tell's slab") on the shore of

Lake Lucerne __NOTOC__ Lake Lucerne (german: Vierwaldstättersee, literally "Lake of the four forested settlements" (in English usually translated as ''forest cantons''), french: lac des Quatre-Cantons, it, lago dei Quattro Cantoni) is a lake in central ...

at the foot of the Axenberg cliffs (an offshoot ridge of

Glärnisch The Glärnisch is a mountain massif of the Schwyz Alps, overlooking the valley of the Linth in the Swiss canton of Glarus. It consists of several summits, of which the highest, ''Bächistock'', is 2,915 metres above sea level. Until 2013, the ...

, 1,022 m), in the

Sisikon Sisikon is a municipality in the canton of Uri in Switzerland. It is situated on the shore of Lake Lucerne. Geography Sisikon has an area, , of . Of this area, 30.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 44% is forested. Of the rest of the ...

municipality,

canton of Uri The canton of Uri (german: Kanton Uri rm, Chantun Uri; french: Canton d'Uri; it, Canton Uri) is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and a founding member of the Swiss Confederation. It is located in Central Switzerland. The canton's territ ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. It is across the Bay of Uri (''Urnersee'') from the

Rütli Rütli () or Grütli (; ) is a mountain meadow on Lake Lucerne, in the Seelisberg municipality of the Swiss canton of Uri. It is the site of the Rütlischwur in traditional Swiss historiography, the oath marking the foundation of the origi ...

, some 4.3 km away. The Catholic chapel marks the site where according to legend,

William Tell William Tell (german: Wilhelm Tell, ; french: Guillaume Tell; it, Guglielmo Tell; rm, Guglielm Tell) is a folk hero of Switzerland. According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow who assassinated Albr ...

during a storm leapt from the boat of his captors (the ''Tellensprung'' "leap of Tell") and escaped, allowing him to assassinate the tyrant Gessler and initiate the rebellion that led to the foundation of the

Old Swiss Confederacy The Old Swiss Confederacy or Swiss Confederacy (German language, Modern German: ; historically , after the Swiss Reformation, Reformation also , "Confederation of the Swiss") was a loose confederation of independent small states (, German or ...

. The ''Tellenplatte'' is first mentioned in 1470 in the

White Book of Sarnen The ''White Book of Sarnen'' (german: Weisses Buch von Sarnen) is a collection of medieval manuscripts compiled in the late 15th century by Hans Schriber, state secretary (''Landschreiber'') in the Swiss Confederation canton Obwalden. This volume ...

, as ''Tellen blatten''. The current chapel was built in 1879. It is decorated with four frescos by Ernst Stückelberg, realized in 1880-1882.

In Music

The incident of the ''Tellensprung'' is depicted in the character piece for piano "La chapelle de Guillaume Tell" by

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

, the first composition in the collection ''

Années de pèlerinage ''Années de pèlerinage'' (French for ''Years of Pilgrimage'') ( S.160, S.161, S.162, S.163) is a set of three suites for solo piano by Franz Liszt. Much of it derives from his earlier work, ''Album d'un voyageur'', his first major published pi ...

'', first year (Switzerland).

References

{{Authority control William Tell Roman Catholic chapels in Switzerland Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Uri Buildings and structures in the canton of Uri Roman Catholic churches completed in 1879 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Switzerland