The works of the Capuchin monk Laurentius von Schnüffis are characteristic of Counter-Reformation piety, employing all the artifice of the secular world to put across the message of repentance. He employed his own talents as a poet and musician and deployed the talents of others, such as musicians and engravers, to compile attractive works intended to convert his audience. Laurentius's musical settings, although simple, are pleasantly varied, and his poetry demonstrates technical sophistication and scholarly erudition. As a representative of the southern German linguistic world, the Catholic cultural area, he shows himself in every way at least the equal of contemporaries from the better-known northern and central German Protestant regions.

On 24 August 1633 Johann Martin was baptized in the village church of Schnüffis (modern form: Schnifis) in the Vorarlberg in western Austria; the date of his birth is not recorded, but many children at that...