About This Location
Look up into the rising mass of marble, clouds, and gilded figures. The Plague Column, or Pestsäule, stands here on the Graben and is one of the best-known Baroque monuments in Vienna. In the middle of this elegant pedestrian street, it feels almost like a burst of movement frozen in stone. This monument grew out of disaster. In 1679, Vienna was struck by its worst plague epidemic, and Emperor Leopold I vowed to erect a memorial if the city were spared. Citizens and the Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity also wanted a public place for prayers and litanies, so a first wooden plague column was planned here on the Graben - described at the time as the most elegant place in the city. The first version went up on 27 October 1679, while the plague was still raging. Men in penitential dress dragged the sculptures from the town hall to the square, and two days later the column was solemnly inaugurated. After the epidemic ended, a great thanksgiving ceremony took place here on 17 June 1680, and the preacher Abraham a Sancta Clara delivered one of the best-known sermons of the time. The monument you see now took shape over many years. What began as a more traditional memorial developed into a dramatic High Baroque composition, and several artists were involved in the process. Lodovico Ottavio Burnacini and the brothers Peter and Paul Strudel were part of the final concept and execution, while Paul Strudel oversaw the project in its last phase. That is what makes this stop so memorable. Around you, the Graben is full of shop windows, cafés, and the steady movement of city life, yet right in the middle stands a monument born from fear, prayer, and relief. It keeps the memory of 1679 at the center of modern Vienna, and it turns that memory into one of the city’s most striking public landmarks.