Salzburg Cathedral

About

Rising at the heart of Salzburg's Altstadt, the cathedral that stands today is a seventeenth-century Baroque achievement, yet its lineage reaches back more than thirteen centuries. The current edifice was raised under Prince-Bishop Markus Sittich von Hohenems beginning in 1614, following plans first sketched by Vincenzo Scamozzi and reworked by Santino Solari, and was consecrated in 1628.

The sanctuary is jointly dedicated to Saint Rupert, the apostle of the region, and Saint Vergilius, an Irish-born bishop who built the earliest church on this site in 774 atop the ruins of the Roman city of Juvavum. Two later Romanesque basilicas occupied the same ground before fire and structural decline opened the way for the present Italianate design.

The twin-towered marble facade carries figures of the four patrons, Rupert, Vergilius, Peter and Paul, and is framed by three bronze portals representing faith, hope and love, cast in the late 1950s. Within, the church measures 142 metres in length and rises 33 metres at the dome, where a single Allied bomb pierced the vault in 1944, with restoration finally completed in 1959.

For pilgrims and visitors alike the cathedral preserves a fourteenth-century Gothic baptismal font, the same in which the infant Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was christened on 28 January 1756. The relics of Saint Rupert rest within its walls, and excavated foundations of the earlier sanctuaries can be viewed in the Domgrabungen beneath the nave.

History

Saint Vergilius of Salzburg raised the first cathedral here in the late eighth century, possibly upon foundations laid by Saint Rupert before him. Lightning destroyed that building in 842, and successive archbishops rebuilt and expanded the church through the early Middle Ages, adding a western choir, crypt and twin towers between 1000 and 1147. Severely damaged in 1598 and beyond repair, the Romanesque basilica was demolished by Prince-Bishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, a patron of Italian Baroque taste. Construction of the present cathedral began in 1614 and concluded fourteen years later, with the relics of Saint Rupert solemnly translated to the new sanctuary at its completion.

Significance

Salzburg Cathedral has served for centuries as the spiritual heart of the Archdiocese of Salzburg and a touchstone of Central European Baroque architecture. Its baptismal font links the church to the sacramental beginning of Mozart's life, and its enclosed Domplatz, framed by arcades joining the Residenz and Saint Peter's Abbey, remains one of the most contemplative ecclesiastical squares in Austria.