LINZ, DIOCESI di. – City and diocese in Austria; it comprises the federal state of Upper Austria, 12,447 sq. km, with 1,042,000 inhabitants, of whom approximately 80,000 are non-Catholics; it is divided into 35 deaneries, with 480 parishes; it has a major and minor seminary, to which is attached a well-known public secondary school with boarding facilities (the Petrinum).
Since almost the entire territory of the two Austrias, Lower and Upper, depended on distant Passau, outside the borders, Joseph II, intending to create an ecclesiastical district better suited to actual needs, decreed on 8 November 1783 the cessation of all Passau jurisdiction in Austrian territory, replacing it with the three dioceses of Vienna, St. Pölten, and L., the latter for Upper Austria, with its seat in the capital, L. On 28 January 1785 Pius VI sanctioned the change. From 1783 to 1909 the former Jesuit church, a richly constructed Baroque building (1669–78), served as the cathedral; but Bishop Fr. J. Rudiger began the construction of a new one in 1862, in the French Neo-Gothic style (architect V. Statz); it was dedicated in 1924.
Within the diocese of L. the following are noteworthy: Hallstatt, a very ancient center for the extraction of salt (with famous prehistoric and historic burial grounds, from the period known as Hallstatt); Lorch, on the site of ancient Laurencum, an episcopal see until the fifth century, whose cathedral still survives in the church of St. Lawrence; at L., St. Martin, a church documented in 799, which incorporates Roman structures into its masonry. Several grandiose Gothic altarpieces are particularly remarkable, above all those of St. Wolfgang, the principal work of M. Pacher (1471–81), of Kefermarkt (1490–98), of Gampern (1490–1500), and of Hallstatt, the work of B. Astl (1510–20). Also very noteworthy are the buildings of several monasteries suppressed under Joseph II, such as Garsten, Gleink, Traunkirchen, Mondsee (748–1791), and Spital am Pyhrn, with magnificent churches from the Baroque period. Among the sanctuaries to be recalled, besides Stadl-Paura (v. LAMBACH), are Christkindl, a curious Baroque structure by C. A. Carlone and J. Prandtauer (from 1691 onward); St. Wolfgang, on the site of the Saint’s death (church 1118, Gothic 1430–60; the Pacher altarpiece mentioned above); Pöstlingberg above L. (present church, 1738–48); and Puccheim (1886–90). Certain cities, such as Enns, Steyr, Wels (the Roman Ovilaba), and Freistadt, preserve spacious Gothic churches and some medieval and Baroque interiors of singular beauty. A specialty is the Fischerkanzele, pulpits in the form of boats (for example, Traunkirchen 1753, Fischlham 1759). The libraries of the suppressed monasteries were transferred to the state Studienbibliothek of L. – Vedi tav. XCIII.
ob der Enns, there 1947; Fl. Oberchristl, Der Linzer Dom, there 1948; F. Juraschek – W. Jenny, Die Martinskirche in L., there 1949.
1. Giuseppe Löw