Newfound Knowledge

June 9, 2011

Today we had announcements at 9, where we learned more about our trip to Budapest this weekend; the trip sounds like it’s going to be my favorite thus far and I’m really looking forward to it.

For class, we met in front of St. Stephens cathedral, which we will see inside of in a later class period. [Just as a side note the only way a church (kirche) can earn cathedral status is if that is where the bishop has his home-base.] From the cathedral we visited the roman ruins, the oldest church in Vienna – St. Ruprecht, and Maria Anistable – another gothic church but to a smaller magnitude than that of St. Stephens.

The Roman Ruins Museum was one of my favorites because it was short and pretty hands on. We went downstairs and were able to see the remains of Vindabona I and II. The Romans were amazing engineers and architects, which we saw when looking at their heating system. They made very small columns, about 2 feet high, between the crushed down Vindabona I and their floors. This allowed for furnaces on the outside to pump heat in between the two floors and throughout the wall, which had the same system, which was an ingenious idea and creation to stay warm in the cold Viennese winters. Another interesting thing with the Romans involved their dead. When a person would die they would put a small candle in next to them so that they would be comforted when they went into the ground. Dr. O said they did not believe in spirits coming back to the body or anything like that but that the candle was more of a comfort thing to the families than anything. Along with the funerals was that people in higher classes were not supposed to morn publicly so, they would hire mourners to wail and to wear all black, which again they were not supposed to do. They would then morn privately for their loss. After seeing a part of the ruins, Dr. O explained that they are the reason why Vienna’s streets change in elevation; Vienna was built on top of the Roman city, Vindabona. How this worked I am not quite sure but nonetheless, there it is.

The oldest church in Vienna was also pretty cool. It started out as an 8^th century church but was then modified through the changing eras until around 1479, which is when the organ balcony was created by Fredrick III. This we know because it was “stamped” (carved) with the date and AEIOU, which to me just made me think of kindergarten when we recited the vowels but, in German, it stood for “Austria rules the World” (translated of course). Because of this constant changing the church which was originally Romanesque with its flat wooden ceiling, became very gothic stylish. The small windows were enlarged into the large stained glass windows and all the additions to the church had high ribbed ceilings. All these changes that occurred showed that the church had withstood the ages and had been liked enough that people wanted to keep it updated. The most outstanding thing to me was that when they discovered that the original wall frescos that had been there (the frescos and stained glass windows both had the purpose of teaching the bible stories because the people were illiterate), they painted over them because they clashed with the newly renovated stained glass windows, which were done very modernly. This church also had a skeleton in the back; I had remembered that Melk also had a couple but had never seen one close up or heard why they were there, today we did. The skeletons are those of early Christian martyrs and it was very prestigious to have one. The skeletons came from the catacombs of Rome, were dug up and brought here. This however was very expensive and this skeleton, St. Virgil, had been bought by Maria Theresea. One quote that Dr. O shared with us about one skeleton that she saw said, “What you are, I once was. What I am, you will become.” Super creepy right!?

The last place we went to see was Maria Angistate, which is a gothic church but to a smaller degree than that of St. Stephens. It has two different meanings that come from its name. The first is Maria on the steps, because you needed to walk up a lot of steps on one side of the church since it was built right on the edge of the ruins and therefore had a large decrease in elevation. The second name is Maria on the banks, which Dr. O likes better because it had originally been built right on the bank of the Danube River.

From the church we also learned that it is easy to date the Gothic churches based on the ribbing. The more ornate ribbing came later. This can be seen clearly as the work progressed on this church because at the front there is simple ribbing and towards the back is much more intricate ribbing.

After class Kati and I split one of the humongous pretzels that have been set up around St. Stephens cathedral and ended up with a super strong taste lingering on our tongues; so, we plucked off as much of the rye as possible. Anna and I walked to the University so that she could get some of their infamous pens, which to me write like skinny sharpies with the bonus that they don’t bleed through the page and I got another journal to take notes in the Art and Architecture class fieldtrips. On the way back I stopped at the rose garden and took over 180 shots of the beautiful roses while Anna went back to work on her paper. I stayed in the gardens enjoying the roses till it was time to meet up with Anna and Kati for dinner at 6. We headed off to 1516 which we had heard served good burgers and had a great house beer. First off, the chicken burger was delicious. Secondly, the house beer was gross.