Imperial Armory (Upper Arsenal)

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The “Kays. Zeug Hauß “(Upper Arsenal) on a map from 1710. The complex is located between the city wall and Renngasse.

The Imperial Armory , also known as the “Upper Arsenal” or “ Imperial and Royal Armature Armory”, served from 1587 to 1848 as a repository or depot for the imperial weapons collection. It was located in the 1st district of Vienna between Renngasse 5–9, Wipplingerstraße 27–31 and partly 30–32, Hohenstaufengasse 1–5 and 2–6 and Rockhgasse 4–6; and was topographically "above", as opposed to near the Wien River located ancient imperial armory (Lower Arsenal) .

history

Until 1559 the Stallburg served as an imperial armory and armory, which was converted into a residence between 1558 and 1565 for Archduke Maximilian who had returned from Spain (from 1564 as Emperor Maximilian II). In the course of this, the imperial weapons collection was temporarily moved to the building of the Salzburger Hof in Renngasse, which was demolished in 1584. The imperial armory, also known as the "Upper Arsenal", was built in its place between 1584 and 1587 under Emperor Rudolf II .

In 1672, the Schottenstift gave Emperor Leopold I a large garden plot adjacent to the armory, which enabled it to be greatly expanded. The resulting building complex now completely closed off Wipplingerstraße.

During the revolution of 1848 , in the course of the Vienna October Uprising , fierce fighting broke out. So the revolutionaries succeeded in looting the armory on October 7th. Above the archway of the armory there was a small, stone portrait of the Virgin Mary from around 1620, which remained intact despite the bullet rain that destroyed the wall around it. This locally as the "armory Madonna" statue was called to the newly built 1,855 Arsenal spent and in the local Arsenal Church of Our Lady Victorious at the high altar erected.

On October 8, 1848, the armory was closed and the imperial weapons collection was moved to the new Imperial and Royal Court Weapons Museum (today the collection is in the court hunt and armory of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in the Neue Burg ).

In the 60s of the 19th century the arsenal was eventually canceled and re-parceled the area.

The Heeresgeschichtliches Museum has watercolored pen drawings by Paul Löbhart (1774–1850) and Mathias Waniek († 1834), dated 1818, with depictions of interior views of the armory (floor plan and ceiling of the Kaisersaal, walls of the gun model chamber).

See also

literature