take me to church
August 7: Monday
Right: Not my pic.
Medieval Catholics were never especially subtle about their religion. Take a rich duke and a rich church, and you can make some truly impressive architectural feats. Today, we went to Stephenplatz, one of Vienna's main squares, and took an extended tour of the cathedral to the right: St. Stephen's Cathedral.
It's the tallest building in Vienna, a towering monstrosity (I mean that in the nicest, most religious way) that's easily visible from much of the city. First built by one of the many Rudolfs of the Hapsburgs in the 1100s, it's withstood several sieges and occupations and fires.
See the big tower? That's the south tower. It's something like halfway to heaven - 450 feet tall. The northern tower was originally meant to be equally tall, but construction was halted for two reasons. First, it was wildly expensive, and second, the city had to divert most of its funds towards Vienna's walls, because at the time (the 1500s and 1600s), Austria was being invaded by the Ottoman Turks.
Now would be a fine time to mention that when the Turks invaded Europe during this period, Vienna was the big gateway city. The Turks had literally destroyed the Byzantine Empire in 1453, and had swiftly conquered the Balkans - that's Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, etc. If they took Vienna, they would have passage into the rest of Europe, and who knows what else would have fallen? Saint Stephen's Church stood at the center of the city that was defending Christendom and western Europe.
And spoiler: Vienna never fell.
Beauty and Repairs
Check the top-right picture and you can see the unusually ornate roof. It consists of hundreds of thousands of tiles. Just making it grey didn't seem quite befitting of such a grand church - or such a powerful monarchy. Now, unlike most of the church, the tiles we see now are actually recreations. The original tiles did survive for centuries, but World War II did them in. In the final month of the war in Europe, the church caught fire as the Nazis were pulling out of Vienna. The entire roof collapsed - and those hundreds of thousands of tiles - each one weighing over a kilogram - fell inwards. Until the 1950s, Saint Stephen's Cathedral stood around with no roof; it literally opened up into the sky.
And come to think of it, that's pretty holey.
The cathedral hasn't had any catastrophes since then, but it's still being constantly repaired. When my class got there, much of the west side was covered in tarp and a lot of the pavement around it was being repaired. And the stone on the east side was blackened - the result of air pollution. Apparently, the city of Vienna cleans the outside of the cathedral pretty much round-the-year. As soon as they finish one side, they move on to the next side. It's perpetually in reconstruction. Austria spends two million euros a year just on cleaning the outside walls!
So if they can spend millions on fixing their churches and still have free college, then what the hell are we doing wrong?
Oops. I mean heck.
Top: A lectern, to be used by a priest in the cathedral, beautifully constructed with the figures of saints.
Right: "This is my church. There are many like it, but this is MINE."
Inside the Cathedral
At the end of the tour, we all went our separate ways. A couple classmates and I stayed in the cathedral, though, continuing our way upstairs to the Treasure Room. A very claustrophobic, cylindrical elevator brought us up to piles or delightful artifacts and dead people. Skulls galore.
The lavishness of these items cannot be understated. Gold cups encrusted with jewels. Crowns with rubies and sapphires. Beautifully preserved tapestries. It hits home the historical fact that in the medieval times, wealth belonged to the churches.
There were also more recent items in there, including a Romantic-Era painting of the crucifixion of Christ. What I found interesting about it was the way that Christ's enemies, dragging him to the cross, were portrayed. With long black bears, shiny golden necklaces and braces, and fanciful turbans, they looked more like Ottomans than Romans.
In fact, they looked exactly like Ottomans. How curious - but sort of expected - that the enemies of the day would be transplanted into art of a time gone by.
Afterwards I had Austrian McDonald's.
