Salzburg Cathedral

• 1. Introduction

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  Salzburg Cathedral stands at the heart of one of Europe's most storied cities, dedicated to two saints whose legacies shaped the entire region: Saint Rupert and Saint Vergilius. On the 28th of January 1756, the day after he was born, a child named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was carried to the baptismal font inside this building. That font still stands. It predates the current cathedral by centuries, a Gothic relic from the 1300s sitting inside a grand Baroque nave built in the 1600s. How do you end up with a medieval font inside a seventeenth-century church? The answer involves a series of fires, political ambitions, a demolished Romanesque basilica, and an Italian architect whose original plan was torn up before a single wall went up. What makes Salzburg Cathedral remarkable is not just what it is today, but how many times it had to be remade to get there.

• 2. A Church Rebuilt by Fire and Faith

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  Saint Vergilius of Salzburg laid the first foundations of the cathedral between 767 and 774, on ground that had once been part of the Roman town of Juvavum. That original structure, the Virgil Dom, measured 66 metres long and 33 metres wide. It did not stand untouched for long. Within 70 years of its completion, Archbishop Arno had already ordered the first round of renovations. Then, in 842, lightning struck and the building burned. Reconstruction began three years later.

  Centuries of additions followed in a piecemeal fashion. Under Archbishop Hartwig, a choir and crypt were added between 1000 and 1080, pushing the sanctuary toward the west. Archbishop Konrad I raised the west towers between 1106 and 1147. By the time the early Middle Ages had run their course, what remained was a Romanesque basilica assembled across at least three major building campaigns, none of them fully coherent with the others.

  Then came 1598. A severe episode of damage left the basilica beyond practical repair. Several attempts at restoration all failed, and ultimately it was Prince-Bishop Wolf Dietrich Raitenau, who served as Archbishop from 1587 to 1612, who declared the old structure unsalvageable and ordered it demolished. Beneath the current cathedral, the Domgrabungen excavation preserves what the old church left behind: foundation stones, mosaics, and artifacts from the Roman forum that once occupied this site.

• 3. Wolf Dietrich and the Baroque Vision

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  Wolf Dietrich Raitenau had spent time in Italy and had seen the new Baroque architecture emerging in Rome. He came back to Salzburg convinced that his cathedral should match those ambitions. He was also the patron responsible for building the nearby Alte Residenz, which today connects directly to the cathedral complex.

  To realize the new church, he hired the Italian architect Vincenzo Scamozzi to draw up a comprehensive Baroque plan. Construction never started under Wolf Dietrich, however. He was succeeded as Archbishop by Markus Sittich von Hohenems, who held the position from 1612 to 1619, and it was Sitticus who laid the cornerstone in 1614. The architect who actually built the cathedral was Santino Solari, who dramatically revised Scamozzi's original design.

  The new sanctuary was finished in 1628, less than 15 years after that first cornerstone was placed. On the 24th of September 1628, at its consecration, 12 choirs were positioned in the marble galleries and performed a Te Deum composed for the occasion by Stefano Bernardi, the Kapellmeister to the Salzburg court. The score of that Te Deum has since been lost. Bernardi drew on the building's unique acoustics in his later work as well, including the 1630 Missa primi toni octo vocum, written to exploit the cathedral's balconies.

• 4. The Face of the Cathedral

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  Salzburg Cathedral sits adjacent to Residenzplatz and Domplatz in the Altstadt, the Old Town of the city. Three open arcade arches on the north, south, and west sides of Domplatz connect the cathedral to the Salzburg Residenz and St. Peter's Abbey, forming an enclosed square 101 metres long and 69 metres wide, with walls rising 81 metres high.

  The cathedral's body is built from dark grey stone, but its facade is clad in bright Untersberg marble. Two towers frame that facade, and a curved gable caps it. The facade divides into three horizontal layers. At street level, three high round arched portals give access to three bronze gates; four large sculpted figures of the diocesan and cathedral patrons flank these portals. The mitred figure of Saint Rupert, shown holding a salt barrel, and Saint Virgilius, holding a church model, were carved around 1660 by Bartholomäus van Opstal. Saint Peter with keys and Saint Paul with a sword were added around 1697 by Bernhard Michael Mandl, who also carved all the pedestals. The bases bear the coats of arms of Prince Archbishop Guidobald von Thun and Prince Archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun.

  Above the entrance balustrade stand statues of the four evangelists. Higher still, the top tympanum carries the arms of the two men most responsible for the building: Markus Sittikus and Paris Lodron. The pediment above depicts the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor, with Christ as Salvator Mundi flanked by Moses and the prophet Elijah. Those three statues were carved in 1660 by Tommaso di Garona, the mason who also built the Residenz Fountain. The three bronze doors themselves date from 1957 and 1958 and represent the virtues of faith, hope, and love. Toni Schneider-Manzell created the gate of faith; Giacomo Manzù the gate of love; Ewald Mataré the gate of hope.

  Domplatz is dominated by a column to the Immaculate Mary, the Maria Immaculata, commissioned by Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach and carved from Untersberg marble and cast iron by the brothers Wolfgang and Johann Baptist Hagenauer between 1766 and 1771. When a visitor stands at the back of the arcade arches, the column lines up precisely with the central axis of the cathedral, so that the crowned Marian figure appears to wear the golden crown mounted on the building above her.

• 5. Wartime Damage and the Bells

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  In 1944, a single bomb fell through the central dome of Salzburg Cathedral during World War II. Repairs were slow, but by 1959 the restoration was complete. The finished cathedral measures 142 metres long and 33 metres high at the crossing and dome.

  The bell tower holds seven ringing bells, two of them bourdon bells. The largest, named Salvator, is the second largest bell in Austria, surpassed only by the Pummerin bell in Vienna Cathedral. Salvator and the second bourdon, Rupert, along with four other bells, were cast in 1961 by Robert Schwindt and Georg Sippel of the Glockengießerei Oberascher foundry. The one bell that survived from the consecration year itself is the Maria bell, cast in 1628 by Wolfgang and Johann Neidhart. Its inscription, placed there by Archbishop Paris von Lodron, reads in part: "Holy Mary, Gate of Heaven, open your help to those who supplicate."

  Only two of the seven bells serve as clock bells. Josef chimes every quarter hour while Rupert strikes the number of each full hour. In Austria, bells are always numbered from largest to smallest, with Bell 1 always designating the tenor or bourdon. The Virgil bell, also from 1628 and also cast by the Neidhart brothers, carries an inscription addressed to Saint Rupert directly, asking him to "drive away plague, hunger, war, and the snares of the archenemy" on behalf of his flock.