Ottavio Piccolomini – Scheme and Good Deeds

The 9th District of Vienna – home of multi-faceted figures of the past.

Pilgrims show their Freud devotedness in the Berggasse. Not far away in the Servitengasse you can visit Prince Ottavio Piccolomini, Wallenstein’s general, the conspirator against Wallenstein and the benefactor of the Serviten in Vienna. He „tidied“ und survived the battle of Lützen (near Leipzig) during the Thirty Years’ War, was successful during many more battles and used his strategic skills for the perfect scheme against Wallenstein. And turned himself into the benefactor of the Serviten Order- what a metamorphosis! Piccolomini is buried in the Serviten church underneath a side altar. In an alcove of the cloister of the Viennese Serviten next to the church a bust made by the sculptor Francesco Mangiotto commemorates Piccolomini. Whatever you may think about him the cloister and Piccolomini are worth a visit. Maybe during the Long Night of the Churches 1st June 2007 (programm in German).

Franziska und Karl – Love

A balcony in Verona? Vienna has more love and a Taj Mahal. The Faniteum in Ober St. Veit (Hanschweg) is the Taj Mahal of Vienna.

Marble from Italy, choir stalls from Brittany, reliefs from Spain, a baptistry from the 17th century. What love is being bemoaned here? The love of count Karl Lanckoronski und Franziska Xaveria of Attems-Heiligenkreuz. A jubilant love that began in 1892 and was destroyed only one year later after the birth of their son Anton. The place where you can find the Faniteum today was planned to be the family home. But after the birth of the son Franziska died and Karl decided to build a mausoleum for his wife. Architect was Emanuel La Roche. Due to Viennese regulations she can’t be buried there. Nevertheless the count errects the building to commemorate her and to help to ease social problems. One part of the building is the mausoleum without a burial site and another part is the sanatorium for poor girls who just left hospital.

Today you can find there the convent of Saint Josef of the Bare-Footed Carmelites. When you visit a mass you can see the marble relief with count Karl holding his newborn son in his arm and the hand of his dying wife.

More about the Faniteum, in German but with pictures.

Johann Evangelist Zacherl – Insect Repellent

Zacherl built his factory in Vienna like a mosque as a reference to the place where the resources for his production came from. The chrysanthemum from Tiflis.

Johann Evangelist Zacherl was born in Munich in 1814 and died in Vienna in 1888. He produced the famous insect repellent Zacherlin. For the production of the repellent he errected a mosque in Unterdöbling in the street Nußwaldgasse. The coloured ceramic tiles and the oriental architecture place this building among the brightest industrial buildings of Vienna. Architect was Hugo Wiedenfeld a specialist for this architectural style.

 

More factories in a mosque? The cigarettes’ factory in Dresden, text in German but interesting pictures.

Even more unusual mosques? A mosque not as a factory but as cover for a pump house errected by Friedrich Willem IV. in Potsdam. The reason was he didn’t want to look on a pump house from his castle terrace.