The Karlskirche (“St. Charles Church”) could be called Fantasia on Imperial Majesty. In A.D. 1713, riding high on the retreat of the Turkish threat and his new position as Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI decided to build a church for his patron saint, the fanatically anti-Protestant St. Charles Borromeo. Plague had visited Vienna the year before, and Charles VI had vowed he would honor Borremeo, famed for helping plague victims in Italy, if the city made it out alive. Construction crews started work in A.D. 1716.

The final product, a Baroque wedding cake if ever you saw one, is the work of the great architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. It was built in direct view of the Hofburg and was used as the imperial patron parish church until the Empire disintegrated.

Hollywood Bonus: The famed actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr (then known as Hedwig Kiesler) was married in Karlskirche in A.D. 1933. She was 19. Her fascist husband, Friedrich Mandl, was 32. The marriage was not a happy one. A few years later, Hedy disguised herself as a maid and fled to Paris. The rest is Tinseltown history.

Although he never lived to see the Karlskirche finished, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach can’t have been too unhappy. For this is the man who created the Austrian National Library, the Schloss Klessheim, the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy, and the Collegiate Church in Salzburg. Born in Graz in A.D. 1656, Fischer von Erlach seemed to have left his mark on almost every piece of Austria, including gardens, mausoleums, and plague columns.

Picture, then, a 16-year-old boy heading south on the road out of Graz. In the Roman workshop of Johann Paul Schor, the young Styrian encounters an artistic hero – Gian Lorenzo Bernini –  and learns the finer points of sculpture, metalworking, and architecture. After a sojourn in Naples, Fischer von Erlach returns to Austria at the age of 31.

Fame soon follows. He becomes the court architect of Joseph I, combining his knowledge of Italian Baroque with inspiration from styles he spots in England, Prussia, Venice, and the Netherlands. During a lull in his later career, he writes the Plan of Civil and Historical Architecture, which showcases works from antiquity. He includes not only Roman and Grecian works, but Islamic and Oriental buildings as well.

Finally, courtesy of the plague, Fischer von Erlach is given the chance to create his pièce de résistance – a church that mashes all of his international ideas into one temple of Austrian magnificence. There is a Greek temple entrance, Trajan’esque columns, Baroque pavilions, and a mighty crown. Like Hagia Sophia, St. Paul’s, St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Pantheon, this is meant to be a dome without peer.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite the dome Fischer von Erlach envisioned. Since the great man died before the Karlskirche was completed, his son, Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach, was left to finish the top. The younger Fischer von Erlach modified and shortened the original plans. So if the dome looks a bit stunted to you, you’re not crazy.

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Further Reading:

• The 17th and 18th Centuries: Dictionary of World Biography, Volume 4 by Frank N. Magill (see pp. 473-475).

 

Carved by the sculptor Lorenzo Mattielli, the columns on either side of the Karlskirche are modeled on Trajan’s Column in Rome. They also echo the columns, Boaz and Jachim, that stood guard at Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. The swirling relief depicts scenes from the life of St. Charles Borromeo, to whom the Karlskirche is dedicated.