Virgil Chapel

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The underground Virgil Chapel, with a painted Byzantine wheel cross

The Virgil Chapel , an underground crypt next to St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna , is a rectangular crypt (about 6 m × 10 m) with six niches. Today it is about twelve meters below the level of Stephansplatz .

history

The history of the chapel is not entirely clear: its architecture can be dated to the early 13th century. At that time, the last Duke of the Babenberg family , Frederick the Arguable (1230–1246), was Lord of Vienna. It was hypothesized that the duke, who would have liked to see Vienna as a diocese , had a crypt built for St. Koloman, who was then the patron saint of the desired diocese . The axes of the chapel are aligned with the position of the sun on the saint's name day. In any case, the chronicles do not mention the construction, which gives rise to the assumption that it was some kind of failed project.

In 1307 a chapel of the middle-class Chrannest family is mentioned. The chapel is said to have had several altars , one of which was consecrated to St. Virgilius of Salzburg .

In the Middle Ages, St. Stephen's Cathedral was surrounded by a large cemetery . There was a small chapel dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene for the consecrations and funeral masses . The Virgil Chapel was exactly below this chapel. A shaft led up into the Magdalena Chapel. In 1473 Hans Viereck the Eisner bequeathed in a will for the construction of an entrance hall between the furpaw in front of the crypt by the new Korrner on sand Steffannsfreythof ... if you raise zepawen a larger amount of money. Laurenz Spenning drew the plans for this porch, which was built by Dombauhütte .

In 1732 the cemetery around the cathedral was closed. The Magdalena Chapel burned down in 1781 and was not rebuilt (presumably because without a cemetery there was no need for a cemetery chapel). The Virgil Chapel was filled in and was forgotten.

In 1972 the chapel was rediscovered in the course of work on the Vienna subway . The interior was filled. After the removal of the material, the chapel is now in good condition, although the west wall fell victim to the construction of the underground. The Virgil Chapel originally had neither doors nor windows and was only accessible from above via ladders. By removing the west wall, it can now be easily reached; As a consequence, the chapel was integrated into the Stephansplatz underground station .

On Stephansplatz, the floor plan of the Virgil Chapel and Magdalena Chapel was reproduced with colored stones.

Access

The Virgil Chapel is now a branch of the Vienna City Museum . Initially, the chapel was accessible from the underground station via a small side corridor. In the late 1990s, increased moisture levels and growth of lichen occurred, which is why the chapel was closed to visitors in the early 2000s. It has been accessible from the upper level of the Stephansplatz subway station since December 2015 . A slightly raised floor was used in the chapel, and a discreet railing keeps visitors away from direct access to the walls. The Virgilkappe has a museum of the Middle Ages with exhibits and detailed documentation of the chapel and the Middle Ages in Vienna.

literature

  • Michaela Kronberger (Ed.): The Virgil Chapel in Vienna. Building history and use. Phoibos-Verlag, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-85161-164-9 .

Web links

Commons : Virgilkapelle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Walther Brauneis : On the topography of Stephansplatz . In: Wiener Geschichtsblätter 26, 1971, pp. 161–168.

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 30 ″  N , 16 ° 22 ′ 20 ″  E