The Pestsäule is located on Graben, a street in the inner city

Innere Stadt

The Innere Stadt is the 1st municipal District of Vienna . The Innere Stadt is the old town of Vienna. Until the city boundaries were expanded in 1850, the Innere Stadt was congruent with the city of Vienna...

 of Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 and is one of the most well-known and prominent pieces of sculpture in the city.

In 1679, Vienna was visited by one of the last big plague epidemics

Great Plague of Vienna

The Great Plague of Vienna occurred in 1679 in Vienna, Austria, the imperial residence of the Austrian Habsburg rulers. From contemporary descriptions, the disease is believed to have been bubonic plague, which is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, carried by fleas associated with the black...

. Fleeing the city, Emperor Leopold I

Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor

| style="float:right;" | Leopold I was a Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and King of Bohemia. A member of the Habsburg family, he was the second son of Emperor Ferdinand III and his first wife, Maria Anna of Spain. His maternal grandparents were Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria...

 vowed to erect a mercy column if the epidemic would end. In the same year, a provisional wooden column made by Johann Frühwirth was inaugurated, showing the Holy Trinity on a corinthian

Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...

 column together with nine sculpted angel (for the Nine Choirs of Angels). In 1683, Matthias Rauchmiller was commissioned to do the marble works, but he died in 1686 and only left a few angel figures. Several new designs followed, among others by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach

Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach

----Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, born Johann Bernhard Fischer was probably the most influential Austrian architect of the Baroque period....

, who designed the sculptures at the base of the column. Finally, the project management was assigned to Paul Strudel

Paul Strudel

Paul Strudel or Paul Strudl was an Austrian sculptor, architect, engineer, and painter, ennobled as Baron von Strudel and Vochburg....

, who based his work on the concept of theatre engineer Lodovico Burnacini. Below the Trinity figure, Burnacini envisioned a cloud pyramid with angel sculptures as well as the kneeling emperor Leopold, praying to a sculpture of faith. Among others, the sculptors Tobias Kracker and Johann Bendel contributed to the column. The column was inaugurated in 1693.

In spite of the long construction period, the frequent amendments of the design and the large number of sculptors involved, the monument appears quite homogeneous. During the design period, it changed from a conservative memorial column to a high baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

scene, narrating a story in a theatrical form. The monument thus indicates the transition to the era of High Baroque in Vienna. It highly influenced the style and was imitated in the whole Austrian region.

External links

• Plague Column Vienna a Video