Vienna history and culture
There can be no better place to begin a tour of Vienna, or indeed of Central Europe, than at the heart of the Austrian capital: St Stephen's Cathedral (Stefansdom). Exercise of the kind needed to reach the viewing room of its south tower is not normally to be recommended, but there is much in Vienna that conduces to long hours of indolence, and a quick march up the tower's 533 steps will happily ward off any feelings of guilt during subsequent hours spent in the city's cafes.
From the top, the view (alas, owing to the high number of suicides, possible only through iron bars) offers a glimpse of lands where more than once the fate of Austria and indeed of Europe was decided. To the north the Vienna Woods cluster round the hills of Kahlenberg and Leopoldsberg. It was from here in 1683 that the armies of Jan Sobieski poured down on the Turks who were besieging the city, driving the infidel back and so commencing the long and tortuous decline of the 'sick man of Europe', as Tsar Nicholas was to call Turkey over two hundred years later.
The landscape of Austria
To the east the flat fields of the Marchfeld can be seen. A more undistinguished landscape would be difficult to imagine, but it was here that in 1278 Count Rudolf of Habsburg defeated King Ottokar of Bohemia, who, incidentally, was the monarch responsible for rebuilding the cathedral after the first St Stephen's was destroyed by fire in 1258. This victory not only gave Rudolf Vienna, it also marked the beginning of 640 years of Habsburg rule in Austria.
This was not the only battle to be fought on the Marchfeld. In 1809 over 300,000 troops were locked in one of the most sanguinary campaigns of the Napoleonic wars when, at the battle of Aspern, the Habsburg Archduke Karl inflicted the first defeat the French emperor had known on land. Six weeks later, at the battle of Wagram, Napoleon repulsed a second Austrian attack over the same ground and won a bloody victory, but at the cost of a quarter of his troops. For years afterwards the land of the Marchfeld was soft underfoot.
Such conflicts suggest that the Habsburgs were a military family bent on supremacy through sheer force of arms. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. 'Bella gerant alii. Tu Felix Austria nube' ('While others wage war, you, happy Austria, marry') was the phrase coined to express the way in which the ruling house acquired its land: through well-considered dynastic marriages in the centuries following Rudolf's victory on the Marchfeld.
Lobau and Marchfeld
In front of the woods of the Lobau and the Marchfeld rises the imposing Belvedere Palace, with its lawns and green copper domes. Closer to us are the gables of the Franciscan church, to the right of which, with its flags flying, is the yellow Hotel Imperial. The large boulevard which runs in a ring from the Imperial, past the domes of the Hofburg Palace visible from the south window, marks the fortifications of the city during the Turkish sieges. When they were demolished in the 1850s, the grand palaces, museums and parliament buildings were erected, giving Vienna a grandeur to match Paris and London.
Also from the south window, the Karlskirche, with its twin Trajan columns and green copper dome, can be seen. When it was begun in 1716 it lay on the glacis outside the fortifications. Even St Stephen's, now at the heart of Vienna, lay outside the old city, whose earliest walls ran along the Graben (literally 'the ditch'), now a road which runs towards the large green dome of the Hofburg, almost directly beneath us.
The east view belongs to the twentieth century. To the left of the Prater wheel (immortalized in the film The Third Man) the vast con¬crete flak towers erected for the defence of Vienna in the last war rise from the green of the Augarten. They belong, in a gruesome way, to the very best or worst of 1940S architecture. Even today their size makes them impossible to demolish without risk to neighbouring buildings. The north-west window (from which we spotted the Vienna Woods and Kahlenberg) brings us past the brown mass of the new city hospital to the twin mid-nineteenth-century Gothic towers of the Votivkirche on the Ring and back along the Graben.
The Cathedral in Vienna
The city below, with its Baroque domes, narrow streets and grand
palais, is still the Vienna of 1918, and the cathedral, thanks to sensitive Austrian planning, still dominates the skyline.
Those who feel the need to pause after the descent from the tower can do so at the tables opposite the west door the Riesentor, or 'giant door'of the cathedral. The Expresso zum Stefansplatz and the Domcafe (the latter is better if it's raining) are not typical coffee-houses, but they are comfortable and offer a good view of the west facade of the cathedral and the Riesentor. Most of what can be seen from here was at least partially rebuilt in the Gothic style when the present nave was added in 1446. Later alterations gave the hitherto unfinished north tower its Renaissance cupola, while the bright tiling of the roof has rightly been called a nineteenth-century apotheosis of lavatory decoration.
A walk round the outside of the church offers a field-day for funerary monument enthusiasts. Most of the monuments date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and are indispensable to anyone tracing the development of Mannerism in Austrian sculpture. All repay close ex-amination, though one may have to keep an eye open for the horse¬drawn Fiakers which park along the north wall, as their drivers are understandably indifferent to such researches.
On the corner of the north tower is a monument erected to the memory of one Lorenz Zimmerman, who, like thousands of other Viennese, perished in the plague of 1574. A typical memento mori, it is a gruesome rendering of a skeleton. Further along, there is a crucifix in a barred niche below which stairs lead down into a rather sinister darkness and the catacombs beneath the church. Today, the catacombs may be reached from inside the cathedral, but many Viennese pause here to kneel and say a quick prayer in front of the crucifix on their way to the shops.
Just beyond this is the fine Gothic pulpit from which in 1481 St Capristanus first called for the destruction of the infidel, a cry taken up with zeal by the later Habsburgs. At the corner there is a side door to the cathedral in front of which are displayed photographs of the burnt-out shell of St Stephen's after Allied bombing during the war. Such de¬vastation might suggest that one is about to enter one of those pitifully bleak, over-restored churches often to be found in German cities. Fortunately the craftsmen here did their work with rare skill, and the gloomy darkness of the interior seems completely medieval even to the most discerning eye. The glass was of course destroyed, but rather than replace it with some expressionist design of the fifties, the Viennese wisely chose to use simple coloured panes.
What to see at the Cathedral in Vienna
To the right as one enters, behind an iron gate, is the bishops' memorial chapel; to the left, an undistinguished monument to the raising of the Turkish siege in 1683. But this unpromising beginning soon leads to more rewarding sights. Exploring the treasures of the choir and its side chapels poses a dilemma, as everything to the east of where one now stands is barred by a metal chain. Unless one is prepared to wait for a tour at the west end of the cathedral, pay a small fee and enjoy a guide who recites dates like a computer, there is no alternative but to slip under this chain. Even at the height of the tourist season, it will be at least fifteen minutes before one is discovered. This is more than time enough to inspect the east end, something one can do in any English cathedral where these iniquitous practices have not been introduced.
The south chapel contains the magnificent sarcophagus of Emperor Frederick I I, the first Habsburg to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. It is surprisingly self-effacing, but amid the impressive red and white marble carvings and thirty-two coats of arms can be seen the letters A.E.I.O.U., a motto indelibly associated with Frederick and standing for 'Austria erit in orbe ultima' ('Austria will outlast all other powers'), or 'Austria est imperare orbi universo' ('It is for Austria to rule the entire world').
The choir itself is chiefly notable for the fine late fifteenth-century light-wood Renaissance stalls, containing excellent portraits of bishops. The Baroque painting above by Tobias Pock, however, scarcely merits a glance. The small north choir is rich in monuments, including ones of Duke Rudolf IV and his duchess, Catherine. Although Rudolf reigned only from 1358 to 1365 he enlarged St Stephen's and founded the University of Vienna, which explains why the red banners marked 'Univer¬sitas' lie on his tomb.
Turning to the nave, perhaps greeting some officious warder about to remove us from this forbidden area with a cheery 'Good morning´, it is time to slip back under the chain and explore the rest of the interior.
One remarkable area is near the third pier from the west end, which features a delightful example of flowing Gothic in the pulpit attributed to Anton Pilgram of Brno in Moravia. The craftsman's portrait is sculptured looking somewhat gravely out of a window in the lattice work. The same face peers out at us from an elaborate organ base on the north wall behind us, in another gorgeous late flowering of Gothic.
Baroque elements
As in many south European churches, there is much grafting of Baroque elements onto Gothic structure to be seen, in general effect less unpleasant than one might expect. The south aisle contains a fine wooden imperial viewing box underneath which stand, quite neglected, some exquisite black wooden stalls of the late 1520S.
For those whose tastes lie in this direction, a tour of the catacombs, where the relics of the emperors are kept, and the bones of thousands of plague victims can be seen, commences opposite.
Before leaving, it only remains to pay one's respects to the greatest general who ever led an Austrian army, Prince Eugen of Savoy, who lies buried in the south aisle chapel at the west end. The soldier who saved Marlborough's life at the battle of Blenheim has a humble grave, but visitors can encounter more spectacular monuments to him in other parts of the city.
From the top, the view (alas, owing to the high number of suicides, possible only through iron bars) offers a glimpse of lands where more than once the fate of Austria and indeed of Europe was decided. To the north the Vienna Woods cluster round the hills of Kahlenberg and Leopoldsberg. It was from here in 1683 that the armies of Jan Sobieski poured down on the Turks who were besieging the city, driving the infidel back and so commencing the long and tortuous decline of the 'sick man of Europe', as Tsar Nicholas was to call Turkey over two hundred years later.
The landscape of Austria
To the east the flat fields of the Marchfeld can be seen. A more undistinguished landscape would be difficult to imagine, but it was here that in 1278 Count Rudolf of Habsburg defeated King Ottokar of Bohemia, who, incidentally, was the monarch responsible for rebuilding the cathedral after the first St Stephen's was destroyed by fire in 1258. This victory not only gave Rudolf Vienna, it also marked the beginning of 640 years of Habsburg rule in Austria.
This was not the only battle to be fought on the Marchfeld. In 1809 over 300,000 troops were locked in one of the most sanguinary campaigns of the Napoleonic wars when, at the battle of Aspern, the Habsburg Archduke Karl inflicted the first defeat the French emperor had known on land. Six weeks later, at the battle of Wagram, Napoleon repulsed a second Austrian attack over the same ground and won a bloody victory, but at the cost of a quarter of his troops. For years afterwards the land of the Marchfeld was soft underfoot.
Such conflicts suggest that the Habsburgs were a military family bent on supremacy through sheer force of arms. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. 'Bella gerant alii. Tu Felix Austria nube' ('While others wage war, you, happy Austria, marry') was the phrase coined to express the way in which the ruling house acquired its land: through well-considered dynastic marriages in the centuries following Rudolf's victory on the Marchfeld.
Lobau and Marchfeld
In front of the woods of the Lobau and the Marchfeld rises the imposing Belvedere Palace, with its lawns and green copper domes. Closer to us are the gables of the Franciscan church, to the right of which, with its flags flying, is the yellow Hotel Imperial. The large boulevard which runs in a ring from the Imperial, past the domes of the Hofburg Palace visible from the south window, marks the fortifications of the city during the Turkish sieges. When they were demolished in the 1850s, the grand palaces, museums and parliament buildings were erected, giving Vienna a grandeur to match Paris and London.
Also from the south window, the Karlskirche, with its twin Trajan columns and green copper dome, can be seen. When it was begun in 1716 it lay on the glacis outside the fortifications. Even St Stephen's, now at the heart of Vienna, lay outside the old city, whose earliest walls ran along the Graben (literally 'the ditch'), now a road which runs towards the large green dome of the Hofburg, almost directly beneath us.
The east view belongs to the twentieth century. To the left of the Prater wheel (immortalized in the film The Third Man) the vast con¬crete flak towers erected for the defence of Vienna in the last war rise from the green of the Augarten. They belong, in a gruesome way, to the very best or worst of 1940S architecture. Even today their size makes them impossible to demolish without risk to neighbouring buildings. The north-west window (from which we spotted the Vienna Woods and Kahlenberg) brings us past the brown mass of the new city hospital to the twin mid-nineteenth-century Gothic towers of the Votivkirche on the Ring and back along the Graben.
The Cathedral in Vienna
The city below, with its Baroque domes, narrow streets and grand
palais, is still the Vienna of 1918, and the cathedral, thanks to sensitive Austrian planning, still dominates the skyline.
Those who feel the need to pause after the descent from the tower can do so at the tables opposite the west door the Riesentor, or 'giant door'of the cathedral. The Expresso zum Stefansplatz and the Domcafe (the latter is better if it's raining) are not typical coffee-houses, but they are comfortable and offer a good view of the west facade of the cathedral and the Riesentor. Most of what can be seen from here was at least partially rebuilt in the Gothic style when the present nave was added in 1446. Later alterations gave the hitherto unfinished north tower its Renaissance cupola, while the bright tiling of the roof has rightly been called a nineteenth-century apotheosis of lavatory decoration.
A walk round the outside of the church offers a field-day for funerary monument enthusiasts. Most of the monuments date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and are indispensable to anyone tracing the development of Mannerism in Austrian sculpture. All repay close ex-amination, though one may have to keep an eye open for the horse¬drawn Fiakers which park along the north wall, as their drivers are understandably indifferent to such researches.
On the corner of the north tower is a monument erected to the memory of one Lorenz Zimmerman, who, like thousands of other Viennese, perished in the plague of 1574. A typical memento mori, it is a gruesome rendering of a skeleton. Further along, there is a crucifix in a barred niche below which stairs lead down into a rather sinister darkness and the catacombs beneath the church. Today, the catacombs may be reached from inside the cathedral, but many Viennese pause here to kneel and say a quick prayer in front of the crucifix on their way to the shops.
Just beyond this is the fine Gothic pulpit from which in 1481 St Capristanus first called for the destruction of the infidel, a cry taken up with zeal by the later Habsburgs. At the corner there is a side door to the cathedral in front of which are displayed photographs of the burnt-out shell of St Stephen's after Allied bombing during the war. Such de¬vastation might suggest that one is about to enter one of those pitifully bleak, over-restored churches often to be found in German cities. Fortunately the craftsmen here did their work with rare skill, and the gloomy darkness of the interior seems completely medieval even to the most discerning eye. The glass was of course destroyed, but rather than replace it with some expressionist design of the fifties, the Viennese wisely chose to use simple coloured panes.
What to see at the Cathedral in Vienna
To the right as one enters, behind an iron gate, is the bishops' memorial chapel; to the left, an undistinguished monument to the raising of the Turkish siege in 1683. But this unpromising beginning soon leads to more rewarding sights. Exploring the treasures of the choir and its side chapels poses a dilemma, as everything to the east of where one now stands is barred by a metal chain. Unless one is prepared to wait for a tour at the west end of the cathedral, pay a small fee and enjoy a guide who recites dates like a computer, there is no alternative but to slip under this chain. Even at the height of the tourist season, it will be at least fifteen minutes before one is discovered. This is more than time enough to inspect the east end, something one can do in any English cathedral where these iniquitous practices have not been introduced.
The south chapel contains the magnificent sarcophagus of Emperor Frederick I I, the first Habsburg to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. It is surprisingly self-effacing, but amid the impressive red and white marble carvings and thirty-two coats of arms can be seen the letters A.E.I.O.U., a motto indelibly associated with Frederick and standing for 'Austria erit in orbe ultima' ('Austria will outlast all other powers'), or 'Austria est imperare orbi universo' ('It is for Austria to rule the entire world').
The choir itself is chiefly notable for the fine late fifteenth-century light-wood Renaissance stalls, containing excellent portraits of bishops. The Baroque painting above by Tobias Pock, however, scarcely merits a glance. The small north choir is rich in monuments, including ones of Duke Rudolf IV and his duchess, Catherine. Although Rudolf reigned only from 1358 to 1365 he enlarged St Stephen's and founded the University of Vienna, which explains why the red banners marked 'Univer¬sitas' lie on his tomb.
Turning to the nave, perhaps greeting some officious warder about to remove us from this forbidden area with a cheery 'Good morning´, it is time to slip back under the chain and explore the rest of the interior.
One remarkable area is near the third pier from the west end, which features a delightful example of flowing Gothic in the pulpit attributed to Anton Pilgram of Brno in Moravia. The craftsman's portrait is sculptured looking somewhat gravely out of a window in the lattice work. The same face peers out at us from an elaborate organ base on the north wall behind us, in another gorgeous late flowering of Gothic.
Baroque elements
As in many south European churches, there is much grafting of Baroque elements onto Gothic structure to be seen, in general effect less unpleasant than one might expect. The south aisle contains a fine wooden imperial viewing box underneath which stand, quite neglected, some exquisite black wooden stalls of the late 1520S.
For those whose tastes lie in this direction, a tour of the catacombs, where the relics of the emperors are kept, and the bones of thousands of plague victims can be seen, commences opposite.
Before leaving, it only remains to pay one's respects to the greatest general who ever led an Austrian army, Prince Eugen of Savoy, who lies buried in the south aisle chapel at the west end. The soldier who saved Marlborough's life at the battle of Blenheim has a humble grave, but visitors can encounter more spectacular monuments to him in other parts of the city.
Labels: Baroque elements, Cathedral in Vienna
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