Pestsäule, Vienna

Pestsäule is Vienna’s Holy Trinity column, a Baroque memorial rising on the Graben after the plague epidemic of 1679. It reaches about 21 metres and became one of the city’s most prominent sculptural works. Look at the monument as a carefully staged scene: the lower section belongs to humanity, an angel-filled zone mediates between people and heaven, and the highest section presents the Trinity.

The design expresses this sacred structure through repeated groups of three. Emperor Leopold I appears kneeling in prayer, because he vowed this monument during his flight from Vienna and dedicated it after the epidemic ended. The work was consecrated on the 29th of October 1693.

Its making involved several artists, including Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Mathias Rauchmiller, Paul Strudel, Tobias Kracker and Ignaz Bendl. Fischer von Erlach shaped the figures at the base, while Strudel led the project using a concept by theatre engineer Lodovico Burnacini. Notice the dense clouds, angels and imperial heraldry: the column also presents the defeat of plague and the Ottoman siege of 1683 as victories achieved through Leopold’s piety and intercession. Despite its long, revised construction, the whole monument reads as a unified theatrical performance in stone.