between the city and the outlying suburbs, but was removed in 1892, when the incorporation of the suburbs took place.
The inner town, which lies almost exactly in the centre of the others, is still, unlike the older parts of most European towns, the most aristocratic quarter, containing the palaces of the emperor and of many of the nobility, the government offices, many of the embassies and legations, the opera house and the principal hotels. Leopoldstadt which together with Brigittenau are the only districts on the left bank of the Danube Canal, is the chief commercial quarter, and is inhabited to a great extent by Jews. Mariahilf, Neubau and Margarethen are the chief seats of manufacturing industry. Landstrasse may be described as the district of officialism; here too are the British and German embassies. Alsergrund, with the enormous general hospital, the military hospital and the municipal asylum for the insane, is the medical quarter.
Near the centre of the inner city, most of the streets in which are narrow and irregular, is the cathedral of St Stephen, the most important medieval building in Vienna, dating in its present form mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries, but incorporating a few fragments of the original 12th-century edifice. Among its most striking features are the fine and lofty tower (450 ft.), rebuilt in 1860–64; the extensive catacombs, in which the emperors were formerly interred; the sarcophagus (1513) of Frederick III.; the tombs of Prince Eugene of Savoy; thirty-eight marble altars; and the fine groined ceiling. A little to the south-west of the cathedral is the Hofburg, or imperial palace, a huge complex of buildings of various epochs and in various styles, enclosing several courtyards. The oldest part of the present edifice dates from the 13th century, and extensive additions have been made since 1887. In addition to private rooms and state apartments, the Hofburg contains a library of about 800,000 volumes, 7000 incunabula and 24,000 MSS., including the celebrated “Papyrus Rainer”, the imperial treasury, containing the family treasures of the house of Habsburg-Lorraine, and other important collections.
In the old town are the two largest of the Hofe, extensive blocks of buildings belonging to the great abbeys of Austria, which are common throughout Vienna. These are the Schottenhof (once belonging to the “Scoti,” or Irish Benedictines) and the Molkerhof, adjoining the open space called the Freiung, each forming a little town of itself. As in most continental towns, the custom of living in flats is prevalent in Vienna, where few except the richer nobles occupy an entire house. Of late the so-called “Zinspalaste” (“tenement palaces”) have been built on a magnificent scale, often profusely adorned without and within with painting and sculpture. Other notable buildings within the line of the old fortifications are the Gothic Augustine church, built in the 14th century, and containing a fine monument of Canova; the Capuchin church, with the burial vault of the Habsburgs; the church of Maria Stiegen, an interesting Gothic building of the 14th century, restored in 1820; the handsome Greek church, by T. Hansen (1813–1891), finished in 1858; the Minorite church, a Gothic edifice of the 14th century, containing an admirable mosaic of Leonardo da Vinci's “Last Supper” by Raffaeli, executed in 1806–14 by order of Napoleon and placed here in 1846. Other churches worth mentioning are the Schottenkirche, built in the 13th century, reconstructed in the 17th and restored by H. von Ferstel (1828–1883), containing the tombs of the count of Starhemberg, the defender of Vienna against the Turks in 1683, and of Duke Heinrich Jasomirgott (d. 1177); the church of St Peter, reconstructed by Fischer von Erlach in 1702–13, and the University church, erected by the Jesuits in 1625–31, both in the baroque style with rich frescoes; lastly, the small church of St Ruprecht, the oldest church in Vienna, first built in 740, and several times reconstructed; and the old Rathaus. At the corner of the Graben, one of the busiest thoroughfares, containing the most fashionable shops in Vienna, is the Stock im Eisen, the stump of a tree, said to be the last survivor of a holy grove round which the original settlement of Vindomina sprang up. It is full of nails driven into it by travelling journeymen.
The Ring-Strasse ranks as one of the most imposing achievements of modern street architecture. Opposite the Hofburg, the main body of which is separated from the Ring-Strasse by the Hofgarten and Volksgarten, rise the handsome monument of the empress Maria Theresa (erected 1888) and the imperial museums of art and natural history, two extensive Renaissance edifices with domes (erected 1870–89), matching each other in every particular and grouping finely with the new part of the palace. Hans Makart's painted dome in the natural history museum is the largest pictorial canvas in the world. Adjoining the museums to the west is the palace of justice (1881), and this is closely followed by the houses of parliament (1883), in which the Grecian style has been successfully adapted to modern requirements. Beyond the houses of parliament stands the new Rathaus, an immense and lavishly decorated Gothic building, erected in 1873–83. It was designed by Friedrich Schmidt (1825–1891), who may be described as the chief exponent of the modern Gothic tendency as T. Hansen and G. Semper, the creators respectively of the parliament house and the museums, are the leaders of the Classical and Renaissance styles which are so strongly represented in Viennese architecture. Opposite the Rathaus, on the inner side of the Ring, is the new court theatre, another specimen of Semper's Renaissance work, finished in 1889. To the north stands the new building of the university, a Renaissance structure by H. von Ferstel, erected in 1873–84 and rivalling the Rathaus in extent. Near the university, and separated from the Ring by a garden, stands the votive church in Alsergrund, completed in 1879, and erected to commemorate the emperor's escape from assassination in 1853, one of the most elaborate and successful of modern Gothic churches (Ferstel). The other important buildings of the Ring-Strasse include the magnificent opera house, built 1861–69, by E. Van der Nüll (1812–1868) and A. von Siccardsburg (1813–1868), the sumptuous interior of which vies with that of Paris; the academy of art, built in 1872–76; the exchange, built in 1872–77, both by Hansen; and the Austrian museum of art and industry, an Italian Renaissance building erected by Ferstel in 1868–71. On the north side the Ring-Strasse gives place to the spacious Franz Josef's quay, flanking the Danube Canal. The municipal districts outside the Ring also contain numerous handsome modern buildings. Vienna possesses both in the inner city and the outlying districts numerous squares adorned with artistic monuments. One of the finest squares in the world for the beauty of the buildings which encircle it is the Rathausplatz, adjoining the Ring-Strasse.
Vienna is the intellectual as well as the material capital of Austria—emphatically so in regard to the German part of the empire. Its university, established in 1365, is now attended by nearly 6000 students, and the medical faculty enjoys a world-wide reputation. Its scientific institutions are headed by the academy of science. The academy of art was founded in 1707.
Museums.—In the imperial art-history museum are stored the extensive art-collections of the Austrian imperial family, which were formerly in the Hofburg, in the Belvedere, and in other places. It contains a rich collection of Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities, of coins and medals, and of industrial art. The last contains valuable specimens of the industrial art of the middle ages and of the Renaissance period in gold, silver, bronze, glass, enamel, ivory, iron and wood. The famous salt-cellar (saliera) of Benvenuto Cellini, executed in 1539–43 for Francis I. of France, is here. Then comes the collection of weapons and armour, including the famous Ambras collection, so called after the castle of Ambras near Innsbruck, where it was for a long time stored. The picture gallery, which contains the collection formerly preserved in the Belvedere palace, contains masterpieces of almost every school in the world, but it is unsurpassed for its specimens of Rubens, Dürer and the Venetian masters. Next come the imperial treasury at the Hofburg, already mentioned; the famous collection of drawings and engravings known as the Albertina in the palace of the archduke Frederick, which contains over 200,000 engravings and 16,000 drawings; the picture gallery of the academy of art; the collection of the Austrian museum of art and industry; the historical museum of the city of Vienna; and the military museum at the arsenal.
