In 1912, Alabama monk Brother Joseph Zoettl began recreating landmarks he had mostly never seen

Alabama monk Brother Joseph Zoettl In 1912, a Bavarian-born Benedictine monk at St. Bernard Abbey in Cullman, Alabama, began building miniature cement copies of some of the world’s best-known religious sites, using postcards, pieces of marble and donated costume jewellery as his main guides. Brother Joseph Zoettl spent the next 46 years turning a four-acre hillside quarry into the Ave Maria Grotto. He completed his 125th and final model in 1958 at the age of 80, according to historical records held by the Library of Congress and the official Ave Maria Grotto archives. Although Zoettl had visited only six of the places he recreated, he produced detailed models of landmarks including St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, ancient sites in Jerusalem and the Alamo. The four-acre park remains a major folk-art attraction in northern Alabama and welcomes thousands of visitors each year on the active monastery grounds.From boiler room operator to visionary outsider artistBorn in Landshut, Bavaria, in 1878, Zoettl moved to the United States in 1892 at the age of 14 to join the newly established Benedictine community at St. Bernard Abbey, according to biographical records f...