Following the deadly scourge of plague in 1679 and the relief of the Turkish Siege in 1683 the Viennese, with improved security, embarked on a great building programme which would provide visible proof of triumphant Catholicism and the Imperial Ideal. Two important Central European architects emerged at this time, Johann Bernard Fischer von Erlach and Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt whose designs for churches and palaces commissioned by the nobility of Bohemia, Moravia and Vienna have left their mark as we see today.
Our lecturer: after graduating from the Courtauld Institute, Caroline Cannon-Brookes taught at Leeds University and was a NADFAS lecturer for many year. She currently teaches for the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education and contributes reviews to the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Co-author with her husband of 'Baroque Churches', she has a special interest in Central Europe and has led many tours to the Czech Republic.
Bibliography:
Hans Aurenhammer, J. B. Fischer von Erlach, Allen Lane, 1973
Oldřich Blažiček, Baroque Art in Bohemia, Paul Hamlyn, 1968
Thomas Da Costa Kaufmann, Court, Cloister & City, The Art and Culture of Central Europe, 1450-1800, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995
R. J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979
Esther Gordon Dotson, J. B. Fischer von Erlach, Architecture as Theater in the Baroque Era, Yale University Press, 2012
Rolf Toman (ed.) Vienna Art and Architecture, H. F. Ullmann, 2010
Images fron the top, from Creative Commons: Château of Vranov nad Dyjí © Jerzy Strzelecki; monastery in Jablonné v Podještědí © VitVit; Palace of Schönbrunn, Vienna © LMih; Belveder Palace, Vienna © Palacrogalin
There is an edited video of the event here: