The Baroque period

The Counter-Reformationist and strongly Catholic Habsburgs attached special importance to the redesigning of churches in the prestigious Baroque style. The aloof grandeur of the Karlskirche in Vienna, which was completed in 1737, reflects the imperial, religio-secular, exaggerated sense of power of the Habsburg dynasty. Likewise, at the monastery of Klosterneuburg, the two “crown domes”, bearing the imperial crown and archducal crown respectively, are a visual reminder of Emperor Charles VI’s plan to enlarge the old building into a grandiose imperial monastery residence. A new wave of Baroque edifices engulfed the banks of the Danube. The heaven-aspiring architecture of Melk abbey achieved its consummation.

The villages and towns along the Danube were now stamped with the Baroque style that still characterises them today. Krems was the workplace of the painter Martin Johann Schmidt, known as Kremser Schmidt (1718–1801). He decorated hundreds of churches in Lower Austria with ceiling frescos, and also painted the interiors of residential houses and inns. One frequently depicted Danube motif is the tower of the Himmelfahrtskirche, or Church of the Ascension, in Dürnstein, painted in light blue and adorned with balustrades and projections. In Linz, many groups of Baroque buildings are still preserved today. In the centre of Linz’s rectangular Hauptplatz, or main square, towers the 23-metre-high, cloud-shaped Trinity Column, interwoven with cherubs, monstrances and figures of saints. These sacred monuments are typical reminders of the Habsburg Counter-Reformation of the 17th and 18th century. Baroque trinity columns, statues of the Virgin Mary and sculptures of saints can be found in all the larger townships along the Route of Emperors and Kings, including those on the Slovakian and Hungarian Danube.

During the reign of Empress Maria Theresa (1740-1780), the imperial capital Vienna and the Austrian Danube provinces achieved a zenith in their cultural, economic and political importance. The Enlightenment gained ever more ground at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna: historians refer to it as “enlightened absolutism”. Numerous large buildings were erected, the most famous being Schönbrunn Palace, whose singular colour, known as “Schönbrunn yellow”, soon rubbed off onto all the official Habsburg buildings between the Rhine and the Carpathians. In Bratislava and Buda, too, the nobility constructed palaces, urban chateaus and gardens in the Viennese Baroque style.

Maria Theresa’s son, Emperor Joseph II, thought along large-scale and reform-oriented lines. After the Bavarian bloodline of the Wittelsbach family had died out, the opportunity arose to absorb Bavaria into the Habsburg Empire and to thus found a Danube state which stretched from Lech to Belgrade. However, Frederick II of Prussia immediately raised an objection to the scheme. It was thus “Old Fritz” – a Prussian – who saved Bavaria’s independence! Since then, the Inn river has formed the natural border between Austria and Bavaria.

• Auto route: Hapsburgs/the Baroque
• Cycle route: Hapsburgs/the Baroque