Austria

AUSTRIA. - A state of central Europe, comprising almost the entire northern slope of the eastern Alps, from the Swiss border (Vorarlberg) to the Burgenland with the Salzach basin (Salzburg), that of the Mur (Styria), the upper Drava (Carinthia) and the Danubian valley from Passau to Bratislava (Upper and Lower Austria).

I. GEOGRAPHY.

The territory of Austria measures, within the frontiers of 1922, 84,000 sq. km., on which live 7 million inhabitants (density: 84 per sq. km., higher than the French, lower than the Swiss). The population, entirely German (97%), is in great majority (90.4%) Catholic, with a few Protestants (4.3%) and a Jewish nucleus (2.8%).

An Alpine state, almost entirely mountainous and relatively poor, it benefits from its position as a transit country (the routes between Slavic and Balkan Europe, and between Germanic and Latin Europe, cross there), which nonetheless contrasts with the difficulties of communications (yet it counts over 25,000 km. of roads and 6,800 of railways; the Danube is entirely navigable within Austrian territory).

Alongside agriculture (1/5 of the population) and industry (1/3), commerce (1/7) is therefore one of the primary sources of activity. Cereal production (especially rye) is insufficient for consumption; livestock raising is flourishing (2.2 million head of cattle), although far less than in Switzerland; forest products are substantial and the resources of the subsoil are not negligible (lignite, iron, lead, zinc, copper, magnesite, etc.), which, the one and the other, feed a varied and lively industry (furniture-making, paper mills, steel industry, etc.).

A federal republic since 1918, it became such again in 1945, after the end of the Anschluss with Germany (13 March 1938). Austria, for four centuries (until the First World War) one of the principal European powers, did not form a unity from the national point of view, but only from the dynastic one. On the eve of the First World War, the Austrian monarchy, together with the Crown of Hungary (personal union), ruled over more than 676,000 sq. km. and 55 million inhabitants (300,000 sq. km. and 30 million inhabitants in Austria proper), from the Sudetes to the lower Adriatic and from the upper Danube to Galicia.

At the end of the Second World War Austria was entirely occupied by the Allied troops (May 1945). Reconstituted (4 July 1945) within the frontiers of 1937, it was divided into four occupation zones: the Soviet or north-eastern one (comprising Lower Austria, the Burgenland and Upper Austria on the left bank of the Danube), the American or north-western one (comprising Salzburg and Upper Austria on the right bank of the Danube), the French or western one (comprising the Tyrol and Vorarlberg) and the English or southern one (comprising Carinthia, Styria and eastern Tyrol). These last two zones are in contact with the Italian frontier. Vienna is also (like Berlin) subdivided into four zones, and is the seat of the Allied command in Austria.

With 1.5 million inhabitants (2 million in 1939) Vienna, once the capital of a great monarchy, remains still one of the most important cities of central Europe. Graz (Styria), Linz (Upper Austria) and Salzburg also exceed 100,000 inhabitants.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY.

Today by the word Austria is meant that predominantly mountainous region which, squeezed between the Germanic and Czechoslovak territories to the north, the Italian and Yugoslav ones to the south, extends between the upper and lower Danube and the Inn, between the Enns and the Leitha, its right-bank tributaries, and the Mur and the Drava to the west. The eastern March with the city of Vienna was the heart of present-day Austria. In antiquity this region was identified roughly with Noricum and with upper Pannonia.

1. Classical age

At the origin of Christianity the whole region was under Roman dominion.

The populations, predominantly Celtic, which largely formed the kingdom of Noricum, were subjected to the empire between 16 and 9 B.C. and constituted Noricum, eastern Raetia or Raetia Secunda and upper Pannonia. The slow Romanization did not succeed in making the populations lose entirely their Celtic character. The local divinities merged with those of the empire. The most notable cities were then Carnuntum (later completely destroyed by the barbarians), where, in 193, Septimius Severus was proclaimed emperor, and, in 308, a conference took place between Diocletian and his co-rulers; in 375 Valentinian III stopped there, shortly before it was destroyed; Vindobona (today Vienna): in the ancient city the Roman nucleus can still be traced; there Marcus Aurelius died, in 180; Lauriacum (today Lorch, near Enns) a station of the Danubian fleet; Lentia (Linz); Ovilava (Wels); Iuvavum (Salzburg); Veldidena (today Wilten, near Innsbruck); Brigantium (Bregenz) on Lake Constance; where there was also a station of the fleet; Virunum, not far from Klagenfurt, a large city, completely destroyed; Teurnia (Tiburnia), today St. Peter im Holz, near Spital am Drau; Flavia Solva (near Leibnitz), destroyed in 405; Aguntum (near Lienz), destroyed by a violent flood in the 5th century.

The centers of irradiation for Christianity, as for the other oriental religions, were Mediolanum, Sirmium, and, for the southern regions very important, Aquileia. We know that Syrian and Italian legions were stationed in these provinces for a very long time; and indications of the cult of Mithras, Cybele, etc. are found even today everywhere. It is probable that Christianity penetrated sporadically by means of soldiers, colonists, merchants. We do not know therefore when the hierarchical organization was established there; certainly Aquileia must have been the first center of diffusion of Christianity and this is confirmed also by local legends which assign the introduction of the Christian religion in these parts to Hermagoras and Fortunatus of Aquileia, or to Mark or to other disciples of Peter.

The few martyrs of whom there is record date back to the age of Diocletian: among these Maximilian of Lauriacum, Florian and 40 companions in the same place, and Victorinus, bishop of Petovio (Pettau).

The Vita of Severinus, apostle of Noricum, enables us to have abundant information about the 5th and 6th centuries. He became the center of hope, for the populations by now almost entirely Christian and civilized in the face of the new invaders. It was in the 4th and 5th centuries that the episcopal sees of Celeia (Cilli) and Petovio (Pettau) had their existence, whose bishop Aprianus subscribed to the Council of Sardica (344); of Laureacum, capital of Noricum Ripense (the basilica lies beneath the present-day church of St. Lawrence); of Carnuntum (where a church arose among the porticoes of the amphitheater); Tiburnia (with bishop Paulinus in the time of Severinus and whose basilica lies beneath the parish church of St. Peter, while the cemetery basilica constitutes today one of the most interesting monuments of Roman-Christian A.). For the other cities we do not know whether or not they were episcopal sees: only future excavations will be able to give confirmation in this sense.

The excavations of recent decades have brought to knowledge a series of fortified "refuges," situated on the heights, with a church, presbyteral house and baptistery at the center, with other buildings, baths, casemates etc. around, surrounded by walls, with a gate, generally flanked by two enormous towers. All these refuges, from the first half of the 5th century, are arranged for the most part along the line of the Drava and the Val Pusteria. To be remembered: Hoischkugel, near Maglern, the ancient Meclaria; Hemmaberg, near Globasnitz, in the Jauntal, close to the ancient Iuenna, with church, consignatorium (?) and baptistery; Gratzkogel, near St. Michael am Zollfeld, close to the ancient Virunum, with two churches, and above all Kirchbichl, near Lavant, in eastern Tyrol, close to the ancient Aguntum; the excavations of the year 1948 have shown that here existed the largest refuge of the eastern Alpine regions so far known, with a surface enclosed by walls for 2 sq km.; above the foundations of a Celtic-Roman temple of the 1st century stood the church of the refuge. Besides the refuges there also existed true military castles, such as that at Duel, near Paternion-Feistritz, with a three-nave church, priest's house, with the font in a room, baths, etc. Teurnia was also fortified, having become the capital of Noricum mediterraneum in the last phase of the empire. All these fortifications seem to have constituted a kind of Alpine limes, for the protection of the frontier against barbarian invasions. In other localities, especially on the summits of hills and mountains, remains have been found of some oratories and early Christian churches, superimposed on previous Celtic temples, and then continued, with Romanesque and Gothic constructions, often down to our own days. Finally, it should be noted that the excavations of 1948 led to the knowledge of the first capital of Noricum, situated on the Magdalensberg, north of the Zollfeld, built after the institution of the province (A.D. 15), with its forum, temple (of Mars Latobius), municipium (?), station of the prima cohors Montanorum etc. Virunum, situated on the plain, was therefore the second capital, created in the 3rd century.

2. Medieval age

a) First period. - The Austrian regions after Odoacer were crossed by Theodoric, on his way to Italy, while from the west the Alamanni and the Baiuvari spread through the Alpine valleys. Around 510 in the eastern part the Lombards halted for about half a century. Then followed the hordes of the Avars (around 585) together with the Slavic populations subjected by them, of the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and the so-called "Alpenslawen," that is Alpine Slavs: the latter penetrated, in isolated groups, as far as Tyrol. Roman nuclei, or rather Romanized Celtic ones, certainly remained scattered here and there. In this time, with a first temporary Merovingian domination (from 550), we have knowledge of the survival of the three sees of Tiburnia, Celeia and Petovio (letter of the bishops of Venetia to the emperor Maurice, 591; cf. MGH, Epistulae, 1, 17). For the rest the few sources are completely silent on the religious state of these regions in the 6th and 7th centuries.

Only with the state organization of Bavaria do we have news about the ecclesiastical situation. While the east was slowly transformed into the so-called "Avar desert," a certain Bavarian penetration spread toward the present-day regions of Tyrol, Carinthia, Styria. With the calling of St. Rupert and the creation, at Invavum, later Salzburg, of a monastery with an episcopal see (St. Peter) under the Bavarian duke Theodo, we have, around 700, finally a fixed point for the subsequent systematic irradiation of Christianity in the eastern Alps, where the immigrant Slavic populations were still pagan; the remaining Roman nuclei, on the other hand, were absorbed.

But the Christian mission resumed sure forms and effective methods only after the definitive hierarchical organization of the Bavaria, through St. Boniface, who, in 739, united under Salzburg the already existing bishoprics of Freising and Regensburg, adding a new one, Passau. From this moment onward Salzburg and Passau are the great driving centers of Catholic preaching and at the same time of Germanic cultural penetration as far as the Danubian plains of Hungary. It is to St. Virgil of Salzburg that the merit belongs of having procured, in collaboration with the Bavarian dukes, the establishment of new religious and civil cultural centers, that is, the first monasteries, which, endowed subsequently with ever new territories and founding other "cells" themselves, remained for two or three centuries the pioneers of Christianity. The first monastery was that of Mondsee (748), followed, in the remote Puster Valley, by Innichen, today San Candido, and, the most famous, in 777, Kremsmünster, founded by Tassilo III. In 788 Bavaria was incorporated into the kingdom of Charlemagne. From now on the constant policy of expansion of the Germanic kings toward the Eastern Alps, that is, toward the south, in the direction of Italy, created the march of Friuli and then of Verona, and toward the east the eastern march (Ostmark). Charlemagne definitively eliminated the ever-serious danger of the Avars. In fact, in 796 an ecclesiastical commission was convened on the Danube, composed of the patriarch Paulinus of Aquileia and the bishops of Salzburg and Passau, to confer on the best way to organize a mission in those parts. As early as 785 the famous Arno, a friend of Charlemagne, sat in the Salzburg see; he, created archbishop in 798, united under himself the sees of Säben, Freising, Regensburg, Passau and Neuburg. In 811 it was agreed that the boundary between the zones of missionary influence of Aquileia and Salzburg was to be the course of the Drava. Between Salzburg and Passau the delimitations occurred only after a century, in a manner, it seems, peaceful: it may be said grosso modo that Carinthia, as far as the Drava, Styria and Hungary as far as the Danube were under the influence of Salzburg, the territory toward the north under that of Passau. However, at first Salzburg carried out its missions also in these parts, as is attested, for example, by the patronages of the two oldest churches of Vienna, St. Rupert and St. Peter.

The mission was prearranged at the famous Synod of Reisbach (799). To facilitate the government of regions so far from the sees themselves, the chorepiscopate was instituted, Salzburgian in Carinthia, Passavian in the eastern march, an institution that persisted beyond the year 900. In 823 the important monastery of St. Florian was founded; then villages and small centers arose, colonies of cities, German monasteries and bishoprics, on territories donated by the Germanic kings. Everything, however, was upset and devastated during the invasion, prolonged for more than 50 years, of the Magyars (900-55). These pagan hordes, like the Huns and the Avars, systematically devastated all the neighboring countries (Italy in the whole Po valley, France as far as the Seine, and almost all of Germany), but above all the eastern Alpine regions. Only the grandiose victory of Otto I (955), on the Lechfeld, put an end to the Magyar barbarities and opened a new period, the period of the third and definitive Christianization and of the complete Germanization of the Eastern Alps, with the exception of the most distant tract, toward the Adriatic, where the Slovenes remained.

The only ecclesiastical building remaining intact and still in use, from that second period, is the parish church of Karnburg, in Carinthia, which is the chapel of an imperial palace (Pfalz) mentioned in 888.

b) Second period: political organization, colonization and definitive ecclesiastical arrangement: 9th-13th centuries. - As a consequence of the Magyar invasion, along the Danubian regions, almost everything had to be begun anew; in the interior of the Alpine system, and in the southern parts, the depopulation and the devastations were less serious. Since religious life is intimately connected to political and cultural developments, the political history of A. is touched upon here.

The territories most affected, depopulated or in part even deserted (the future Austria properly so called) were reorganized as a March, and, from as early as 976, were granted in fief to the family of the Babenbergs, which died out in 1246. Their rule, lasting 270 years, marks for the central part of the future Austria a period of rapid cultural, religious and political development. Leopold III the Saint (1096-1136) gave broad support to the religious development of the country. Henry II (1141-77) held the title of duke; the delicate position and the contact with the Eastern world, especially after the first crusades, placed the margraviate in a political position of privilege that was almost independent. Vienna then saw many armies of crusaders from every quarter pass beneath its walls, and almost all the Austrian lords, headed by the dukes, went to the East to fight the Saracens. Austria lived its first golden age between the 12th and 13th centuries, and Vienna was in the region the center of Germanic-Christian culture, especially under Leopold VI the Glorious (1198-1230). After the death of Frederick II (1250) the terrible "interregnum" (1250-73) not only dissolved every bond of public law, but gave occasion to the Bohemian king Ottokar II to occupy the Austrian territories (1251). When Rudolf I of Habsburg (1273-91) assumed the German crown, the situation changed. In order to reestablish public order, so compromised throughout the empire, he had not only to fight all the petty lords, but above all to demand the restitution of the highly important Austrian fief to the crown. After Ottokar fell (1278), Rudolf took possession of the territories of the empire, but in 1282 he granted the Austrian duchy to his sons; from then on, until 1918 (for 636 years) the Habsburgs reigned in Austria, developing, with fortunate policy, the modest initial territories and acquiring for themselves and for their country the universal attestation of "Catholic Austria."

There now follows a brief account of the other territories, which later united with Austria properly so called. Styria, which developed under the Traungauer (Stiraburg), was at first a March, likewise elevated to a duchy, and passed, in 1192, by inheritance, to the Babenbergs. Carinthia, from the year 1000 a duchy in its own right, whereas previously it was subject to Bavaria, had dukes of various houses and passed, by inheritance, in 1335 to Austria. More complex are the developments of the Tyrol. The progressive union of various counties, at first enfeoffed to Trent and Bressanone, led to the constitution of a fairly large and homogeneous territory that took the general name of Tyrol and became "curiosumittelbar," an immediate fief of the Empire. Following various vicissitudes and lines of inheritance, the Tyrol too came to unite, in 1363, with Austria. The Vorarlberg also originated from many small counties and lordships; especially under the counts of Montfort (1188-1400), it became a uniform territory, acquired later by the Habsburgs in 1390. Note finally that the name "Österreich, Austria" goes back to 996, while Vienna appears for the first time with its new name "Wenia, Wien" in 881.

As for the colonization of the territories in question, the southern parts, that is Carinthia and a great part of Styria, did not have to suffer such losses in men and such devastation as the northern parts. The plain region open toward Hungary had remained a veritable desert. It should be noted furthermore that many regions, especially the immense forests north of the Danube toward Bohemia, and also many less accessible inner Alpine regions, had until then been more or less uninhabited. One of the most urgent concerns therefore was to repopulate the whole region. This was ordinarily achieved by enfeoffing more or less vast territories to Germanic lords, to cities, but more often to bishoprics and monasteries. These, in turn, took care to make the lands granted to them fruitful by means of an ever more intensive colonization. This process may be said to have been completed, in principle, during the 11th century; slowly a new and wholly specific spirit, so that the "Austrian" man, in his entire mental outlook, his culture and the antecedents of his own history, which moreover never disowned its Germanic origins, emerges as a wholly distinctive type, clearly set apart from the other variations of the German people properly so called.

Since the indigenous and immigrant population was by then Catholic, the organic developments of settlement themselves gave rise to the developments of religious organization and life. The two centres of ecclesiastical organization remained for centuries the sees of Passau and Salzburg. But while Passau, after its vain attempt to rise to metropolitan dignity (recall the famous forgeries of Lorch), contented itself with governing the remote Austrian regions by means of an "officialate" based in Vienna, Salzburg followed a more flexible tactic; linking itself anew to the defunct system of chorepiscopi, episcopal sees were established, conceived at first as mere vicariates of the metropolitan, which nevertheless soon succeeded in constituting themselves as true dioceses, though rather tiny, while the bishops always remained vicars (archdeacons) of the metropolitan for the regions far from Salzburg. Hence the curious fact: the archbishop of Salzburg had the right to appoint his own suffragans. These supplementary bishoprics were: Gurk in Carinthia (1072); Seckau in Styria (1218), Lavant in Carinthia (1226). In the middle of the 15th century, on the initiative of Emperor Frederick III, the bishopric of Ljubljana arose in Carniola.

But the true imperishable glory of that era are the cultural enterprises of the great Bavarian, and especially Austrian, monasteries, feudal lords of enormous territories, opened by patient labour to all the developments of civil and religious culture. At this point one would have to draw up an entire list of Benedictine monasteries, of Canons Regular, of Cistercians and Premonstratensians.

If the great Austrian monasteries even today present themselves with a number, often very considerable, of parishes fully incorporated into them, this is due to the fact that that territory was once raised by the monastery itself to the highest Christian civilization.

The ever-very-lively relations of the Austrian regions both with Italy and with the neighbouring East resulted in a continuous exchange of reciprocal cultural, literary, artistic and commercial influences which brought about a rapid general development of that entire eccentric part of Germany; Austria then became, as we have already mentioned, the true centre of German culture, and the Babenberg court in Vienna was the most splendid (Walther von der Vogelweide; the earliest German literature, the origins of the great German epics, such as the Nibelungenlied, etc.). Here lie the roots of that marked sense for every kind of high culture which always remained Austria's most glorious boast.

The history of Christianity in Austria, in a certain sense, ends at this era, which wrote its most splendid pages, as the grandiose ecclesiastical art of the time testifies (v. bibliography); for the centuries that followed down to our own day, Austrian Catholicism follows more or less all the European spiritual and cultural movements, at times with specific aspects and with characteristics of its own. Brief remarks will therefore suffice to sketch the history of Austrian Christianity down to the present.

3. Modern age

The beginning of this period is distinguished above all by the centuries-long wars against the Turks; the danger began earlier, but from 1470 until around 1500 there was scarcely a year without violent Turkish incursions into the very heart of the Austrian provinces: in 1520 the first siege of Vienna fell, which dismayed all of Europe. The 16th century marks the height of Turkish predominance; Austria fully assumed the defence of Europe against the Turks, though often hampered by the surging Protestantism, which abused its political strength to extort from the Austrian rulers ever new prerogatives, religious and political, in exchange for some insufficient subsidy; and by France, which never renounced allying itself, secretly or openly, with the Ottomans. Only in the 17th century, after the second siege of Vienna (1683), did Austria succeed in finally driving the Turks out of Hungary (and for this Marco d'Aviano, a Capuchin from Italy, had singular merit) and in pushing them back towards the Balkans. The finest victories that saved Europe from the nightmare of the Crescent are linked to the name of Eugene of Savoy, an Austrian general. The long and harsh war against the Turk, religious in character as well, led, especially after the victorious Catholic restoration, to a grandiose awakening of all religious and cultural forces, so that the years from the 17th century to the middle of the 18th mark, for Austria, together with Baroque culture, a second golden age.

The second characteristic element of the beginning of this period is the violent irruption of Protestantism into Austria and the work of the Catholic Reformation. The rapid development of Lutheranism in Austria was determined, as indeed were the vehement developments of heresy throughout Europe, by a complex of religious, political, economic and cultural causes which, towards the end of the 16th century, had created, with the strong contribution of humanism, a state of general tension. This tension gave rise to continuous wars (especially between Germany and France), with internal revolutions, that is, with the various peasant uprisings, provoked by the economic conditions radically changed after the great discoveries and above all with the general religious revolution of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Henry VIII, etc. Austria too had much to suffer from the peasant uprisings of the first half of the 16th century, but above all from the very rapid expansion of Protestant heresy. Especially the nobles (often for political reasons and to exert pressure on the government, etc.), even more than the oppressed peasants and the middle classes of the cities, turned towards the new faith. The clergy in that period unfortunately left much to be desired. The Catholic Church finally found itself again and, with the Council of Trent, renewed the spirit of faith and of inner holiness, the forces of resistance and of renewal of the whole Christian life, of the clergy first and then of the people. This most difficult work was a fruitful leaven which, after a few decades of incubation, towards the end of the 17th century produced in Austria a rapid Catholic awakening of universal importance. The merit of the Catholic reform belongs first of all to the Styrian descendants of the Habsburgs (Charles of Styria and Ferdinand) who, in the second half of the 16th century, making use above all of the Jesuits, began, setting out from Graz, a systematic work of reconquest (University of Graz, colleges, seminaries, etc.), thus making Austria the vanguard of the Catholic reform itself. At times, to achieve the goal, violence was resorted to, but generally the sole force of persuasion sufficed (Martin Brenner, bishop of Seckau, the "hammer" of the heretics!). In the Tyrol, never so invaded as the other provinces, Sigismund and Ferdinand of Tyrol began firmly to apply the Catholic Reform (Jesuits, Capuchins, University of Innsbruck). In Vienna, and in Austria properly so called, because of imperial policy, strongly opposed by the nobles, the beginnings of the reform were slower (St. Peter Canisius); but with the accession to the imperial throne of Ferdinand of Graz (1619) the fate of the Reform was decided, in the sense of a rapid and almost complete re-establishment of Catholicism in the positions lost. Jesuits, Capuchins, and later also the ancient Orders, themselves by then reformed to new life, contributed effectively to the rise of a new, flourishing, and soon exuberant Catholic religiosity, which pervaded above all the cultural and artistic life of the country. We are at the second golden age of the great abbeys, which, almost all of them, during the 17th and 18th centuries, were renewing their churches and rebuilding, often with grandiose splendor, their houses, according to the dictates of Baroque art, which had soon become familiar to the Austrian spirit. Two great Austrian Benedictine Congregations then flourished, that of Salzburg and that of Melk, proud of their academies, Universities (Salzburg), libraries, scientific publications (the Pez brothers, etc.).

But from the middle of that 18th century, even in Austria the philosophical and political currents that then pervaded all the European States made themselves increasingly felt; the growing rationalism (in Germany in the form of the Enlightenment), secret associations (Freemasonry), the omnipotence of the State (brought to its height by Louis XIV), police regimes, monarchical absolutism with all its train of caesaropapism. Thus in France there was Gallicanism and Jansenism, just as in Germany there was Febronianism, and in Austria Josephinism. The origins and tendencies were identical; there were, however, variations, according to the individual countries and their specific historical, political, and social conditions. In the Austrian government, after the many wars (against the Turks, against France, Prussia), a bare economic utilitarianism began to be introduced, in connection with the beginnings of liberalism and mercantilism in England; the need was felt to strengthen the power of the State, following the example of France, Prussia, etc.; thus one arrived at perfect monarchical absolutism, and consequently at the unification of the state structure, fragmented by so many provinces of different nationality, culture, and confession: a rigorous centralism, therefore. All this combination of new forces and directives could not fail to influence increasingly the relations between State and Church. The whole caesaropapist system of Austrian tint entered history under the name of "Josephinism" (v.), from Joseph II (1780-90). The Austrian Church was almost completely detached from Rome, a formation (general seminaries) was imposed on it according to the current ideologies; everything that was deemed useless to the public aims of the State was simply suppressed; many forms of popular piety, pilgrimages, feasts, confraternities, and above all the "useless" convents, that is, those that did not run schools or works of public assistance, were abolished. Religious toleration was introduced, marriage incorporated into civil legislation, and a system of education was created (moreover a great boast of Josephinism), from elementary school up to the University, entirely rational and compulsory, etc. However disastrous Josephinism was for the Church, for the clergy, and for popular piety, nevertheless certain of its merits cannot be denied, such as, for example, the new and more homogeneous diocesan and parish boundaries, a more reasonable distribution of charity, and others still, although often put into effect despite canonical procedures.

4. Contemporary age - Austria too was gravely involved by the Napoleonic wars in the vicissitudes of a Europe shaken by the French Revolution; and as a natural consequence of so many upheavals, after the Congress of Vienna (1815), the establishment of the reactionary system of the "Holy Alliance." As a result of the experiences made, however, the need was felt to have recourse to the Church and to religion as the guarantee and foundation of the State. Hence the famous motto "Throne and Altar," which could serve, in a certain way, as the common denominator of the following period, up to the fall of the empire.

The period up to the revolution of 1848, the so-called "Vormärz," is characterized, on the one hand, by a continuous state domination over the Church, though in ever-decreasing measure, although true Josephinism persisted for quite some time longer among the high bureaucracy; on the other hand, a growing Catholic reaction began, which had found, since 1808, and precisely in Vienna, an eminent champion in the person of the Redemptorist St. Clement Mary Hofbauer. He knew how to gather around himself the best forces of the nobility, the most distinguished figures of politics, science and literature, and university youth, and the "Hofbauerkreis" (Hofbauer circle) became one of the most effective causes of the Catholic restoration (Fed. Schlegel, philosopher; Ad. Müller, politician; Gius. Klinkowstrom, pedagogue; Zacc. Werner, Em. Veith, poets and sacred orators; not to mention the Eichendorffs, Brentano, Gunther, Baader, and others). The reformer of Styria, Bishop Rom. Seb. Zangerle, was a disciple of the Saint, as was Gregory Ziegler, Bishop of Linz, and above all the famous Otmar Gius. Rauscher, Bishop of Graz, then of Vienna and cardinal. But in the provinces too new forces began to arise; the Redemptorists, founded by the Saint (1820), and the Jesuits, readmitted in 1826, contributed effectively to this with missions and exercises for the people and the clergy. Among the secular clergy too a certain awakening made headway (Schlor in Graz, Archbishop Gruber in Salzburg, the venerable Tschiderer, Bishop of Trent, and others).

The year 1848 brought down the whole system of absolutism; there was a plunge into full liberalism, so much so that in certain ecclesiastical circles people even regretted Josephinism, which, at least in its moderate form, had guaranteed the Church a certain freedom of action and of rights. In 1855 the Concordat was finally concluded, stipulated, overcoming few oppositions (the Hungarian bishops), above all thanks to the Archbishop of Vienna Rauscher and to the minister Count Thun. The Concordat had the misfortune of being linked to a new period of state absolutism; once this had ceased (1876), the establishment of the parliamentary system, with all its train of parties—liberal, national, social, democratic—in continuous struggle among themselves, in continuous changing of alliances and oppositions, soon involved the Church in political strife. After the German fratricidal war of 1866, there was the growing pressure of the various nationalities composing the Austrian empire and of German (Protestant-liberal) nationalism. In 1868 laws were issued, without any agreement with the Holy See, concerning marriage, mixed schools, and freedom of worship; against these Pius IX protested in the consistorial allocution of 22 June 1868. Finally, the dogmatic definition of infallibility of 1870 gave the Beust ministry the pretext to denounce the Concordat unilaterally, because (as is read in the imperial decree of abrogation) the Concordat "has lapsed of itself, by force of the most recent declaration of the Holy See on the fullness of the power of the Supreme Head of the Catholic Church." The vehement struggles over the school, over the religious character of marriage and others, led almost to a true "Kulturkampf" (various laws were arbitrarily issued, especially in 1874, on relations with the Church, on ecclesiastical benefices and the right of patronage, on the exercise of the parochial ministry, etc.), but the personal attitude of the emperor Francis Joseph and some of his direct interventions (he prevented, for example, the arrest, already ordered by the government, of the Bishop of Linz, Fr. G. Rudigier) spared A. the violent unleashing of the struggle. The laws on ecclesiastical matters, in fact, although issued unilaterally in violation of the Concordat, were on the whole anything but hostile to the Church; so much so that Leo XIII, in a letter of 15 June 1887 to Card. Rampolla, his Secretary of State, could affirm that the "eminent piety" of the emperor and "his devotion toward the Holy See... brings it about that the best relations exist between the Holy See and that empire." Meanwhile the Catholic organizations grew in strength (Vogelsang and the conservative Catholic party; Lueger and the Christian Socials), the press (Vaterland, Reichspost; the "Pressverein" in the provinces); the religious life of the people too, somewhat decayed with liberalism, reawakened (religious organizations of the most varied character, missionary work, the Fathers Abel S. I. (v.), Freund the Redemptorist, numerous institutions of Catholic education and charity, of Orders and Congregations), etc., as well as the activity of Catholics in the cultural, scientific and literary field (Kralik and the "Gral," the "Leogesellschaft," etc.). The "Los-von-Rom-Bewegung" (anti-Roman movement) at the close of the 20th century, the growing liberalism of a Protestant and German tinge among the bourgeoisie, and the socialist workers' movement, alienated many from the Church, which appeared ever more closely bound to the activity of the Catholic parties, not without grave harm to its independent activity. Another grandiose manifestation of Catholic A. before the world took place in 1912, with the International Eucharistic Congress. The internal revolution of 1918, the inevitable collapse of the Habsburg monarchy, and the ruin, with it, of so many institutions, ties and orders centuries old, produced for many years, in the new small Austrian republic, grave political convulsions, and put the whole activity of the Church to a hard test.

External life, although the Austrian Constitution of 1 October 1920 recognized many of the rights of the Church, was difficult because of many prejudices, nourished especially by the states that succeeded the monarchy; its internal life was even more difficult because of the disastrous economic situation and the struggles of the parties. Among these, the socialists showed themselves ever more openly atheistic and anti-religious, while the German-Nationals inclined toward an absorption of the small republic into Germany and never denied their aversion to the Catholic Church; only the Christian Socials sought untiringly for a reconstruction, on a Christian basis, of the new A. Unforgettable is the work carried out successfully, especially in the field of international politics, by Chancellor Monsignor Ignaz Seipel, who thus laid the foundations on which the political construction of a purely Catholic character of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss could arise. It was only too natural that the Church should give all its support to such a policy, inspired by the directives of the Gospel and of the Popes for a truly Christian socialism. As this political work was progressively perfected, the purely religious, social and cultural activity of the Church itself also grew (one recalls, at the Exhibition of the Catholic Press in Rome, the Austrian hall; the liturgical movement, centered in Klosterneuburg, directed by Father Pius Parsch; the academic union). Dollfuss's Christian policy meanwhile had its double crowning in the new Constitution of the Austrian Confederation (Österreich. Bundesstaat) based on the corporations (Ständestaat), with an equitable distribution of powers and rights among all classes of the population, with Catholic principles for education, marriage and social legislation; and in the new Concordat, published together with the Constitution on 1 May 1934.

The Concordat, negotiations for which had been begun as early as 17 March 1931, and which was signed on 5 June 1933, is one of the most complete and perfect known. Its spirit is summarized in the first three paragraphs of art. 1: "The Austrian Republic assures and guarantees to the Holy Roman Catholic Church in its various rites the free exercise of its spiritual power and the free and public exercise of worship. It recognizes the Catholic Church's right to issue, within the sphere of its competence, laws, decrees and ordinances; it will not impede or render difficult the exercise of this right. In the fulfillment of their spiritual ministry, ecclesiastics are owed the protection of the State." Among the other fundamental provisions, one recalls: the recognition of the Catholic Church as a society of public law (art. 2; cf. art. 29 of the Constitution of 1934); and the reference to canon law for all other matters, relating to ecclesiastical persons and things, with which the Concordat does not deal (art. 22).

The laws issued by the Austrian Republic for the implementation of the Concordat seem in some points to diverge somewhat from the concordatory provisions (the marriage law of 1934 is modeled in part on the Italian one of 1929).

But while Catholic A. once again attempted to revive according to its centuries-old glorious religious traditions, the pressure of Hitler's National Socialist Germany began to make itself felt more and more, with violence of every kind such as the attempt and the death of Dollfuss (25 July 1934). Finally the small Republic succumbed, with the so-called "Anschluss," 13 March 1938, which caused to disappear together with the name "A." also all the Catholic works and institutions of the country. From then on Austrian Catholicism followed the religious fortunes of Catholicism in the "great Reich," until the liberation and the recovery of the country's independence, which occurred in 1945, an independence somewhat precarious because of the four-power occupation with its inevitable consequences. The constitution of the central government and of the governments in the individual provinces, the elections to the chambers and constitutional life were however granted, though on the basis of the constitution of 1920.

The recovery, material and spiritual, after the oppression

Nazi regime and all the damages of the war, is very laborious. Conscious of its mission, the Catholic Church assists these efforts at regeneration, expanding its specifically religious activity toward the organization of charity in all its most modern forms, and of social works. Noteworthy is the "Wiener kath. Akademie," founded in Oct. 1945, to cultivate, from the standpoint of Catholic doctrine, the sciences and scientific research; the "Kath. Laienjahr," an institute that arose under Nazi pressure (1940) and was rebuilt in 1945, with a two-year course for the formation of laypeople in aid of the priestly ministry; the "Seminar für kirchliche Frauenberufe," erected by the conference of the Austrian episcopate in 1947 in Vienna, for the formation of women for all works of charity, social relief and religious instruction. In Salzburg the Benedictines of the archabbey of St. Peter, under the direction of the episcopate, have founded an "Institutum liturgicum," to direct the liturgical movement on a sure foundation toward a broader action among the people. The Nazi period, with the oppression exercised by the regime and the resistance of the church, is described and documented in the works of K. Rudolf, Aufbau im Widerstand; ein Seelsorge-Bericht aus Österreich 1938-1945, Salzburg 1947, and of J. Fried, Der Nationalsozialismus u. die kath. Kirche in Österreich, Vienna 1948.

Statistical notes. - After the war Austria extended over 83,868 sq km, and, according to the census of 1934, had 6,760,233 inhabitants (in 1939 another census gave 6,880,800); Vienna, the federal capital, had 1,874,130 inhabitants.

Of these, 6,112,658 were Catholics, that is 90.5%; the rest were: Protestants (of the Augsburg or Helvetic confession) 295,452; Jews 191,481; Old Catholics

36,776; without religion 106,080; various 7,105. The ecclesiastical circumscription comprises two metropolitan sees: Vienna, with the suffragans Sankt Pölten and Linz; Salzburg, with Gurk (residence in Klagenfurt), Seckau (with residence in Graz), and two apostolic administrations: Burgenland (under Vienna), and Tirol-Vorarlberg, with seat in Innsbruck; according to the Concordat, Innsbruck was to have been elevated to a bishopric see; but events did not permit its execution. There are 6 minor seminaries and 4 major ones; furthermore 4 theological faculties (Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck and Salzburg); there are religious men (of 37 Orders) 3,600; and religious women (of 54 Orders) 16,200. Catholics directed 1,050 private schools. Further statistical material is found in: C. de Waal, General-Schematismus der kath. Pfarrämter und Ordensniederlassungen in Österreich, Innsbruck 1934; J. Gurtner, Der Säkularklerus und die religiösen Orden Österreichs, Vienna 1934; Ecclesia-Almanach 1948, ibid. 1949, useful for the latest ecclesiastical statistics.

Interesting information on the geographical, geo-political and geo-cultural situation is in H. Gsteu, Länderkunde Österreichs, 2nd ed., Innsbruck-Vienna 1948, with an excellent rational bibliography.

For information on political history in general the following works are recommended: F. Kronex-M. Uhlirz, Österreichische Geschichte, 4 vols., Berlin 1915-23. - Shorter: H. Hantsch, Geschichte Österreichs, I (the only one published), 2nd ed., Innsbruck 1947 (it goes up to 1648, with an excellent bibliography). For the continuation one may consult the excellent study by the same H. Hantsch, Die Entwicklung Österr.-Ungarns zur Grossmacht (Herders Geschichte der führenden Völker), 15, Freiburg 1933. The history of the last decades, and especially in the last period of Austria's political existence, traced by a master hand, is in K. Schuschnigg, Dreimal Österreich, Vienna 1937.

Those who desire rather information on the whole of Austria's cultural history, in all its ramifications (art, religion, commerce, science, etc.) will consult with great profit F. M. Mayer-F. R. Kaindl-H. Pirchegger, Geschichte und Kulturleben Deutschösterreichs, 3 vols., 2nd ed., Vienna 1929-37, with an ample bibliography; or the collection of monographs, all by leading authors, gathered by J. Nadler-H. v. Srbik, under the title: Österreich: Erbe und Sendung im deutschen Raum, Salzburg-Leipzig 1936. Each article is accompanied by a reasoned bibliography.

As for the sources of Austrian ecclesiastical history, much material has been collected in the various volumes of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (consult the indexes); but the work of H. Pez, Scriptores rerum austriacarum, 3 vols., Leipzig 1721-45, still retains its full value in many parts.

For ecclesiastical history one must further note the work of A. Klein, Geschichte des Christentums in Österreich und Steiermark, 7 vols., Vienna 1840 ff.; among recent ones: C. Wolfseruber, Kirchengeschichte Österreich-Ungarns, ibid. 1909; and above all the unfortunately incomplete work of E. Tomek, Kirchengeschichte Österreichs, I (the only one published), s. l. 1935, which goes up to about 1500, with a rich bibliography, lists of bishops, and of mother parishes. Very useful complements are found in J. Thaurén, Atlas der kath. Missionsgeschichte, St. Gabriel 1932; and in the very rich collection of maps and diagrams, prepared by G. Lüdtke-L. Mackensen, Deutscher Kulturatlas, the part: Katholische Religionsgeschichte, Berlin 1934. Special mention is due to the Austrian Historical Institute in Rome, founded in 1881 by Theodor v. Sickel, known editor of the Liber diurnus (Vienna 1889), who was succeeded, as director, by Baron L. v. Pastor, the well-known historian of the popes. For the list of the Institute's publications cf. Ph. Dengel, Das Österr. Hist. Institut in Rom. 1901-1913, Vienna 1914, p. 61 ff.; H. Kramer, Das Österr. Hist. Institut in Rom. 1881-1931, Rome 1932, p. 45 ff.

As for the most recent history, see J. Hollsteiner, Das Konkordat, Leipzig-Vienna-Berlin 1934; and G. di Meglio, De novissimo Austriae regimine, Vatican City 1936.

As regards archaeology, it must be noted that archaeological excavations are supported and published officially by the Austrian Archaeological Institute, which has also carried out famous excavations abroad, as at Ephesus, Salona and elsewhere. A good synthesis on what concerns the classical and early Christian era in Austria is found in R. Egger, Die österreichischen Länder im Altertum, in Nadler-Srbik, Österreich (cited above); id., Die frühchristliche Kunst in Österreich, in K. Ginhart, Die bildende Kunst in Österreich (so far 2 vols. published, Baden 1935-37); F. Miltner, Römerzeit in österreichischen Ländern, Brixlegg-Innsbruck 1948. For the history of the ancient religions in the region, cf. the rich material with ample bibliography collected by K. Prüm, Religionsgeschichtliches Handbuch für den Raum der altchristlichen Umwelt, Freiburg in Br. 1943, pp. 770-92.

Giuseppe Löw

III. LITERATURE.

Although particular environmental conditions and historical circumstances gave Austrian literature a special stamp, so that its tone is easily recognizable within the mighty orchestration of German-language literature, it is nevertheless not easy to make it the subject of a separate treatment. An amalgam of different cultures and different races, in which it is difficult each time to distinguish the contribution of the Germanic, Latin, Slavic or Magyar element, the Austrian world is dominated, in literature as well, by the continuity of the Catholic and imperial tradition. This tradition expresses now a fervent and intimate religiosity without problems, now a boundless love for pomp and ceremonial display, when it does not take refuge, without rebellion, in an atmosphere of bourgeois tranquillity: above everything and everyone there are still always God and the emperor. Only the presentiment of the collapse of the Habsburg empire first, and then the defeat, create an atmosphere of moral and spiritual disorientation that expresses itself in a soft, typically Viennese decadentism.

Already in the early Middle Ages numerous spiritual songs (for example Frau Ava) testify to a fervour of religious life around the monasteries: the contemporary rise and establishment at the courts of Minnesang, a subtle and sophisticated love lyric, bears witness to the extreme refinement of taste attained there. The greatest Minnesänger are Austrian, or at least lived at the court of the Babenbergs, from the mysterious Kürenberger to Reimar der Alte, from his disciple Walther von der Vogelweide to the refined idealist Ulrich von Lichtenstein. In Austria, in an already Renaissance climate, the last of the Minnesänger, Oswald von Wolkenstein, wrote poetry. The national epic (the Nibelungen) and chivalric epic also enjoyed great diffusion, particularly flourishing at the court of Thuringia: a «Life of Jesus» by Konrad von Fussesbrunnen, clearly influenced by the work of Hartmann von Aue, bears witness to this. But chivalric lyric and love lyric are supplanted by a simpler religious poetry of bourgeois intonation when in 1221 the Franciscans settled in Vienna, followed 15 years later by the Dominicans. The centre of secular culture then shifts from Vienna to Prague, where in 1348 the first German-language university would be established (Vienna would have its university in 1365). Bohemian too is the first work of German humanism, the religious dialogue «The Ploughman and Death» (Der Ackermann und der Tod) by Johannes von Saaz. If Bohemian humanism is dated from the stay in Prague of Cola di Rienzo and Petrarch, Viennese humanism is directly inspired by Enea Silvio Piccolomini and by Conrad Celtis, founder in 1502 of the «Collegium poetarum et mathematicorum». On the occasion of the marriage of Maximilian I, the last of the knights, author of the Teuerdank, a chivalric poem of still medieval taste, to Bianca Maria Sforza, which took place in 1494, the Viennese had the opportunity to admire lavish Italian-style masquerades: from then on Italian influence would be strong, especially in the theatrical field, and the position of the theatre in Austrian life would become increasingly important. It was precisely in the theatre that the Reformation would find its strongest opponent: the Jesuit dramas staged with unprecedented scenic splendour are in fact, together with the powerful sermons of Abraham a Sancta Clara, the highest and purest expression of the Austrian Baroque and the most important contribution to the triumph of the Counter-Reformation. The masterpiece of the genre is considered to be the Pietas Victrix of the Jesuit Niccolò Avancino, performed in 1659. But Baroque art continues to bear fruit for about another century, and then ceases, though Italian influence does not cease on that account: among the many Italians living in Vienna, it suffices to recall Metastasio, poet laureate in great favour even under Maria Theresa. In the Enlightenment period, while relations with the German world intensify, the Viennese theatre increasingly asserts itself, availing itself both of the experience of the Jesuit theatre and of that of Italian opera, always triumphant at Court. The echoes of the French Revolution first and then the Napoleonic wars restore to honour, by reaction, the «pair of homeland and religion», briefly obscured by Enlightenment internationalism and Masonic anticlericalism: we have a vivid picture of Vienna on the eve of the Restoration in the work Ahnung und Gegenwart by Eichendorff, who came to Vienna from Germany like A. W. Schlegel, C. Brentano, L. Tieck and Z. Werner. But only the latter settles there permanently, having finally arrived at the Catholic faith and the priesthood after a life of disorder and sin. His friend, St. Clement Mary Hofbauer, was the spiritual guide of all so-called Viennese Romanticism. The never-extinguished theatrical tradition meanwhile finds new growth in the atmosphere of splendor and enjoyment created around the Congress of 1815: while Raimund gives definitive form to the traditional Viennese "Zauberposse," elevating it to the rank of a work of art, Grillparzer, oppressed by family tragedies and stifled by reactionary conformism, sublimates his sufferings into tragedies of an almost classical purity. After the suicide of the one and the sullen withdrawal of the other, the masters of the stage remain Bauernfeld, a "revolutionary in slippers," and Nestroy, who knows how to give the Volksstück the lightness of French operetta: we are by now in full Biedermeyer style. Outside of and above it, Lenau meanwhile sings the sorrow of the world in lyrics of incomparable melodiousness, while Stifter, transferring into the world of nature the cult of small things, describes them with such lucidity and limpidity as to confer on them a universal value. The new realistic current inspires the Bauernkomödien of Anzengruber and the peasant tales of Marie von Ebner Eschenbach, but the genre finds no continuators, just as the historical novels of Enrica von Handel Mazzetti remain an isolated document. People now prefer to shut themselves up in an aristocratic world of formal refinement far from reality, which can no longer satisfy if looked at too closely. In this climate the very young H. von Hofmannsthal creates his lyric poetry, while in Prague young writers gather around R. M. Rilke in the effort to create a new literature inspired by a mysticism that has been called neo-Catholic. For the years immediately preceding the First World War it will suffice to name A. Schnitzler, P. Altenberg, H. Bahr, R. Schaukal and the expressionist G. Trakl, swallowed up by the whirlwind of the war like the very movement of which he was the representative. Many years after the storm ceased, the agony of the Empire would be described with the eyes of one who had seen its consequences by F. Werfel first (Barbara oder die Frömmigkeit, 1929) and by S. Zweig later (Die Welt von Gestern, 1945), both of whom died in exile, in America, during the Second World War. Of the poets who remained in what for some years was the "Eastern March," and were exalted by official criticism, it will suffice to recall Weinheber, heir to the traditional Austrian formal refinement, great when, outside of contingent heroic exertions, he sings the sweetness of everyday life in his beloved Vienna, not shrinking from the use of dialect.

Alda Manghi

IV. SCHOOL SYSTEMS.

The Austrian school reduced its program and changed the direction of education at the moment of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and from cosmopolitan-liberal-Germanic it became interdenominational, simultaneous and national. The Ministry of Public Education has always sought to form in pupils, by means of the school, an Austrian mentality, taking into account the Constitution published on May 1, 1934. According to this, Austrian particularism was always to be emphasized, cultivating in pupils the memory of ancient greatness, the joy of living and the innate artistic sense, and thus eliminating the danger of the Anschluss, desired by many teachers of secondary schools and universities. Despite its interdenominational character, religious instruction, whether Catholic or Protestant, is compulsory in schools of all levels and is entrusted directly to the Church and to the other confessional communities.

Particular care is given to the female sex, which is instructed also in the economic field, in that of social assistance and in that of family life. For this reason, in the final classes of female secondary schools, pedagogy, child care, sewing, cooking and domestic economy are compulsory. School attendance is compulsory from ages 6 to 14 and is free: instruction is divided into preschool, school and postschool. The preschool takes place in the 838 kindergartens, of which 233 are private, and the postschool in the compulsory three-year after-school program. School instruction is divided into elementary, secondary and university.

Throughout A. there were 4,694 elementary schools, of which 1,167 were single-classroom, in which instruction for all eight grades is given simultaneously, 1,337 with two classrooms, 679 with three classrooms, 360 with four classrooms, 240 with five classrooms, 151 with six classrooms, 21 with seven classrooms, 4 with eight classrooms. There are furthermore 631 three-year city schools, of which 107 are private, and 155 secondary schools, of which only 4 are for girls. There are furthermore 3 universities (Vienna, founded in 1365; Graz, founded in 1585; Innsbruck, founded in 1677), and 2 polytechnics (Vienna, founded in 1815 and Graz, founded in 1865), 1 higher school of veterinary medicine (Vienna, founded in 1871), 1 higher mining school (Leoben, founded in 1849), 1 higher school for world commerce (Vienna, founded in 1919), 1 higher school of agriculture (Vienna 1898) and 1 higher school of music (Vienna). Alongside these regular schools there exist special schools: schools of national minorities, guaranteed by the Brno agreement (June 7, 1920), namely 73 Slovene, 25 Croatian, 22 Czech and 9 Hungarian. In 1927 two types of school arose: the reintegration school (Aufbauschule) and the secondary school for workers (Arbeitermittelschule)

where those who have been forced to abandon their studies are prepared in only five years, and together with them those workers who wish to gain access to the various universities.

The education of the clergy is entrusted, as in the past, to the theological faculties that form part of the Universities of Vienna, Graz and Innsbruck. To these seats must be added the theological faculty of Salzburg founded in 1850. In Salzburg there exists a Catholic university committee whose purpose is the reopening of the Catholic University, which was closed in 1810.

Miroslav Stumpf

V. ART.

It is almost impossible to outline a historical treatment of art limited to present-day Austria, which comprises the German-speaking regions of the former Habsburg monarchy, since it represents only a partial aspect of the whole of German art taken as a whole, and on the other hand it also radiates into all the other countries that, until 1919, depended on the same State.

Since in these regions Germandom developed essentially as a phenomenon of colonization, artistic life there began later than in present-day western Germany. Among the architectural monuments of greater importance that are preserved, none is earlier than the 12th century, when that Danubian territory, important as a region of transit, flourished economically under the rule of the energetic margraves of Babenberg. It was then that Vienna became a city; but at that time the most important cultural center of the eastern Alps was Salzburg (seat of those powerful archbishops whose dioceses at first comprised the whole of present-day Austria), which in the 12th and 13th centuries, by means of the suffragan dioceses of Gurk, Seckau and Lavant, created for itself just as many secondary centers of artistic and intellectual life. After the Romanesque cathedral of Salzburg (built in 1181) with its seven bell towers disappeared in 1598, the oldest great Romanesque building is now the cathedral of Gurk in Carinthia, a basilica on piers, originally not vaulted, and provided with two towers; its crypt, known as the crypt of the hundred columns, was completed in 1174. At that same time, however, the Cistercians too, so active in colonizing eastern Europe, were already working on the soaring vaults of their church in Heiligenkreuz near Vienna, whose main nave was consecrated in 1187. Influences coming from Maulbronn in Swabia have been identified there; on the other hand, Viennese late Romanesque, already tinged with Gothic elements, is to be considered as having arrived there through Bamberg. Here, in Vienna, there arose in the first half of the 13th century the church of St. Michael and above all the western part of the cathedral of St. Stephen, the so-called Giants' Door and the Heathens' Towers, where there are also decorative sculptures.

Very rich in present-day Austria, during the 12th and 13th centuries, was the flowering of Romanesque book illumination. In this field too Salzburg is the most important center: in the second half of the 12th century its monasteries probably possessed the best German miniaturists. However, the monastery of the Regular Canons of Klosterneuburg near Vienna and those of the Cistercians of Heiligenkreuz and Zwettl were also very prolific in this sector. Klosterneuburg, which in the 12th century was enriched by a basilica on piers, still preserves, in its ancient chapter hall, that famous masterpiece of the enamel art of the early Middle Ages, which is the so-called "Verdun altar," made by the master Nicholas, a native of the Meuse region, for the provost Wernher, in 1181.

It was the mendicant Orders that introduced early Gothic into architecture. The churches

The Dominican churches of Friesach in Carinthia and of Krems in Austria date from around 1250: they are simple basilicas with a raised central nave. As for the "Halle," characteristic of Austrian Gothic, whose interior space is divided into naves of equal height, it appears for the first time in the choir of Heiligenkreuz, consecrated in 1295, and in the church of Imbach, apparently already completed in 1282; in the 14th century there follow the Cistercian church of Neuberg (1327-44), that of the Augustinians of Vienna (1330), etc. The highest expression of this art form, however, is the long arm of St. Stephen's in Vienna, grafted in 1359 onto a choir of 1304-40. Although at first it was only the parish church of the Danubian city, in full development under the Habsburgs who resided there from 1276, and became an episcopal see only in 1469, the church of St. Stephen became one of the most important workshops of Gothic art, extraordinarily rich also in good sculptors. There is perhaps no other European cathedral for which an equal number of notable sculptors of the 14th-15th centuries worked: two portals of the cathedral, that of the Bishop and that of the Cantor, display sculptural cycles (of 1368-80) of high originality. Of particular value is, inside the church, the so-called Madonna of the Porters (Dienstbotenmadonna), a figure purely Austrian in its delicate grace; at Klosterneuburg there is one of the best representations of the seated Madonna, from the beginning of the 14th century.

In the same monastery near Vienna there is preserved, on the rear facade of the altar of Verdun, restored in 1325, the oldest panel painting of the region: four scenes from the life of Mary, in tempera; and from the same period is a series of painted glass windows in the beautiful cloister of the monastery.

The greatest pride of Austrian Gothic, however, is the southern tower of St. Stephen's, the true emblem of Vienna, indeed of the whole country; it rises and develops, compact and organic like a giant tree, from the root to the perforated summit, which dissolves entirely into transparency. It seems that it was begun in 1354 and completed in 1433; the northern tower, begun in 1450, remained unfinished.

In the 15th century Vienna, where the emperor resided, was the largest city of Germany: Enea Silvio Piccolomini extolled its beauty.

The "realism" of late Gothic was imported into Austrian painting by an emigrated Swabian, Johannes von Tübingen: the name of another painter, a local one, Konrad Laib, is connected with two crucifixes rich in figures. The Tyrolean Michael Pacher is the creator of the great winged altar of St. Wolfgang near Salzburg, completed in 1481, and equally noteworthy for its painted part as for the carvings of the shrine. Despite certain connections with Mantegnesque art, the altar is a masterpiece of German "late-Gothic Baroque"; the stone sculpture of the same period has its most famous creation in the great tomb monument of Emperor Frederick III (begun around 1467), in the cathedral of St. Stephen: a late creation of Nicolas Gerhaert of Leiden, of Dutch origin but active in Trier and Strasbourg. These two works represent the premises of the more specifically Austrian late-Gothic sculpture, which left its most significant works in the altar of Kefermarkt (c. 1480-90), the statues of apostles in the parish church of Wiener Neustadt, bold creations of Lorenz Luchsperger of c. 1490-1500, the altar of Zwettl (now in Adamsthal, Moravia), probably by Andreas Morgenstern.

Coming to the so-called "old-German" painting, besides the works of Pacher and of the Salzburg artists influenced by him, the Master of Mondsee and Max Reichlich, whose principal works are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, the greatest flourishing is found in the so-called "Danubian school," begun in the early years of the 16th century, through the works that the Franconian Lucas Cranach and Jörg Breu of Augsburg created in Austria, as well as through those of the local artist Rueland Frueauf (altar of St. Leopold for Klosterneuburg, of 1501); it then had its best-known representatives in Albrecht Altdorfer of Regensburg and Wolf Huber of Passau. Both also worked for Austria: Altdorfer is the author of an altar of the Passion in the monastery of St. Florian near Linz, and Huber painted portraits in Vienna and in Kremsmünster. All works characterized by particular pictorial and poetic gifts, and by a sincere sense of landscape and of the picturesque.

Emperor Maximilian I, who preferred Innsbruck as a residence, then had there, in the Hofkirche, a gigantic tomb, which he himself had planned as a sort of bronze review of ancestors. By his orders many artists from Augsburg and Nuremberg worked there from 1508, and also the famous Peter Vischer, who contributed two statues. The ensemble comes to be the largest complex of bronze statues ever created in Europe in memory of a single personage. All the sculptors were German: only in 1562 did the Dutchman Alexander Colin also take part, with some ideas for the actual imperial tomb, on which only in 1581, as the last work, the praying figure of the patron then arose.

Only indirectly can it be said that the Italian Renaissance influenced this great complex, whereas the art of the South was to assert itself completely under the emperor's two grandsons, Charles V and King Ferdinand. Thus, in the course of the 16th century, not only numerous castles but also all the Austrian cities were enriched by charming arcaded courtyards, in which Italian luminous clarity combines, often quite suggestively, with the irregularities of a frankly Nordic picturesqueness. Typical examples of this composite style, but with a predominantly Italian character, are the Porcia palace in Spittal (Carinthia), and the Landhaus of Graz with its courtyard of pillars on three orders, of 1556. Moreover the open loggia already represented a familiar motif in local late-Gothic architecture; the most familiar example is the "Goldnes Dachl" in Innsbruck, a delightful balcony applied to what was then the princely castle (c. 1550). Under Emperor Ferdinand I the Viennese Hofburg also began to be gradually transformed into a princely castle according to southern taste. The so-called Schweizertor of 1552 preserves for us the most notable remnant of this artistic activity.

Far more significant, however, became the part played by Austria in the process of introducing the Italian Baroque into southern Germany. Both the Habsburgs, as champions of Catholicism in the empire, and the various religious orders (Jesuits, Dominicans, etc.) all contributed to this in the same direction. But here too the most important pioneers of the new style were the archbishops of Salzburg. The cathedral, begun in 1606 by Vincenzo Scamozzi and continued in 1614 by Santino Solari, but according to a modified design, became one of the most important Baroque churches in Europe. Not, however, without also taking into account German taste, especially in the two tall towers of the façade. Between 1614 and 1620 Pietro Pomis of Lodi erected in Graz a mausoleum for Ferdinand II, entirely Italian in style, but likewise with excessively slender domes. In Vienna itself the Italian Baroque, combined with the Nordic type of façade flanked by towers, was introduced above all with the church of the Jesuit University, which bears the date 1627 above the entrance. The architectural formula of the nimble pair of towers was successful and widespread also among the industrious Carlone family. They worked, especially in Upper Austria, in the second half of the 17th century, leaving there, in the monasteries of Kremsmünster, Schlierbach, Garsten and above all in St. Florian, as well as in the cathedral of the city of Passau, so immediately bordering on Austria, imposing examples not only of their art as builders but also of their skill as decorators.

The age of Charles VI, or rather of Prince Eugene, can be defined, after that of the late Gothic, as the true noontide of Austrian art. Its greatest names are those of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1650-1723) and Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt (1668-1745).

To the former belong above all the designs for the new buildings of the imperial Hofburg and of the summer palace of Schönbrunn, designs of extraordinary grandeur but which were then carried out only to a minimal extent. In these works, as in all the others, Fischer von Erlach's heir was his son Joseph Emanuel, as also in the construction of the church of St. Charles Borromeo in Vienna, designed in 1722 but begun only in 1724, and completed in its imposing dome in 1725. As for Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt, in his masterpiece, the summer palace of Prince Eugene, the Belvedere (almost completed in 1723), we see him rise to such a level of highly personal genius that one understands how he exercised an enormous influence on all the Baroque art of southern Germany. Alongside these great figures we find not a few Italian artists active, such as Domenico Martinelli, who, among others, worked for the Prince of Liechtenstein; but especially Donato Felice d'Allio, who directed the new construction of the monastery of Klosterneuburg, of which Charles VI wanted to make an "Austrian Escorial." What there was to remain grandiosely unfinished was instead accomplished in an unsurpassable manner in the monastery of Melk on the Danube (almost completed in 1738), by Jacopo Prandtauer: the fusion of church and monastery into a single gigantic unified organism.

Maria Theresa's taste inclined toward France: the interiors of Schönbrunn demonstrate this, and even more so its magnificent park, which presupposes that of Versailles.

In the 18th century Baroque painting expands with extraordinary richness across the ceilings and vaults of churches and palaces: among the artists, we shall recall, for the first half of the century, Rottmayr and Altomonte, for the second, especially Antonio Maulpertsch.

The sculpture of the Austrian Baroque is also rich in great talents. At the beginning of the 18th century we find at work, in the Salzburg region, Meinrad Guggenbichler, while Georg Raphael Donner represents the court style. Many reminiscences of the school of Giambologna are noticeable especially in his beautiful fountain erected on the Neuer Markt, in Vienna, inaugurated in 1739. Toward the middle of the century there emerges as a typical provincial genius, full of strength and originality, Giuseppe Taddeo Stammel, who decorates the abbey of Admont in Styria with his wooden statues: the library of this sacred building is one of the most beautiful among the many similarly beautiful ones of Austria, at the head of which stands the main hall of the Hofbibliothek in Vienna, which is perhaps the most perfect work of the two Fischer von Erlach.

In the 1700s Vienna obtained its "Academy," that is to say the first German state art school, through which the imperial city greatly increased the diffusion of the art cultivated in it; its director for many years, around the end of the century, was the painter Füger, who represents with good taste the "classicism" of Louis XVI. In the 19th century, however, many of the best artists opposed this institution, particularly Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, an excellent portraitist and discoverer of the artistic value of the Wienerwald. In agreement with the Academy, on the other hand, is the Nazarene Joseph Führich, who left excellent things as a wood engraver.

After the demolition of the ancient fortified enceinte, Vienna, in the second half of the 19th century, witnessed a vigorous building activity. In 1859 work began on the ring of the Ringstrasse, which as a whole surpasses any other analogous creation of other capitals, even if its monumental buildings taken individually provoked much criticism. True models of theater buildings are the Opera House (1861-69) by Siccardsburg and von der Nüll, and the Burgtheater by Semper and Hasenauer (1873-88), while the two museum-palaces by the same architects offered a worthy seat to the grandiose collections of the imperial city. With the new tendencies that established themselves around and after 1900, the architects Otto Wagner and Koloman Moser acquired a good name, while the "Wiener Werkstätten" (Viennese Crafts) favored the development of an art of interior decoration full of good taste. - See Plates XXXI-XXXII.

Leo Bruhns