The Vienna Hofburg in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

The Hofburg in Vienna is the largest complex of secular buildings in Europe, and one of the world`s major palaces. This intrinsic importance is strikingly contradicted by the little attention the palace is paid by the art sciences. The small number of publications such as a volume of the "Österreichische Kunsttopographie" devoted to the Hofburg in 1914, several essays by Harry Kühnel, Alphons Lhotsky`s publication on the "Neue Burg" in 1941, and a special issue of the "Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Denkmalpflege" (1997), to cite the most relevant bibliographical references, indicates how inadequately, in terms of quantity, the history of the Vienna Hofburg has been dealt with to this date. The "Kommission für Kunstgeschichte der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften", chaired by Professor Artur Rosenauer from the University of Vienna, has therefore embarked on a major project, in which the subject of the Vienna Hofburg will be studied during several years and with the state- of-the-art means of academic research. The digitisation campaign, which is now carried out, under the auspices of this art history commission, in the Albertina museum, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv and in other essential institutions and which makes Hofburg-related plans accessible in electronic form, will provide participants to this project with the means they need to accomplish their art-historical aims with a wide-spun and highly effective range of methods. Many of the intended research activities will break new ground, since to this date no investigators into the history of the Vienna Hofburg have set out to study its so complex architectonic structure in view of its capacity as a major European palace building, and this on a considerably enlarged material basis. The here submitted project sheds light on the construction and development of the Hofburg in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In particular, it covers the period of about 170 years from 1533, when the court moved from Prague to Vienna under Ferdinand I, to the death of emperor Leopold I in 1705, and thus the reigns of as many as seven emperors from the Habsburg dynasty. In the focus of research are three construction phases - expansion of the medieval fort-type palace, raising of two likewise unattached palaces ("Stallburg" and "Amalienburg"), and erection of the "Leopoldinischer Trakt" during the second part of the seventeenth century -, at the end of which the Hofburg had grown, topographically and in architectonic dimensions, into a considerably larger complex of buildings and - together with elaborately designed gardens - into that state which in the eighteenth century was to become the object of large-scale "imperial" expansion.

The Hofburg in Vienna is the largest complex of secular buildings in Europe, and one of the world`s major palaces. This intrinsic importance is strikingly contradicted by the little attention the palace is paid by the art sciences. The small number of publications such as a volume of the "Österreichische Kunsttopographie" devoted to the Hofburg in 1914, several essays by Harry Kühnel, Alphons Lhotsky`s publication on the "Neue Burg" in 1941, and a special issue of the "Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Denkmalpflege" (1997), to cite the most relevant bibliographical references, indicates how inadequately, in terms of quantity, the history of the Vienna Hofburg has been dealt with to this date. The "Kommission für Kunstgeschichte der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften", chaired by Professor Artur Rosenauer from the University of Vienna, has therefore embarked on a major project, in which the subject of the Vienna Hofburg will be studied during several years and with the state- of-the-art means of academic research. The digitisation campaign, which is now carried out, under the auspices of this art history commission, in the Albertina museum, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv and in other essential institutions and which makes Hofburg-related plans accessible in electronic form, will provide participants to this project with the means they need to accomplish their art-historical aims with a wide-spun and highly effective range of methods. Many of the intended research activities will break new ground, since to this date no investigators into the history of the Vienna Hofburg have set out to study its so complex architectonic structure in view of its capacity as a major European palace building, and this on a considerably enlarged material basis. The here submitted project sheds light on the construction and development of the Hofburg in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In particular, it covers the period of about 170 years from 1533, when the court moved from Prague to Vienna under Ferdinand I, to the death of emperor Leopold I in 1705, and thus the reigns of as many as seven emperors from the Habsburg dynasty. In the focus of research are three construction phases - expansion of the medieval fort-type palace, raising of two likewise unattached palaces ("Stallburg" and "Amalienburg"), and erection of the "Leopoldinischer Trakt" during the second part of the seventeenth century -, at the end of which the Hofburg had grown, topographically and in architectonic dimensions, into a considerably larger complex of buildings and - together with elaborately designed gardens - into that state which in the eighteenth century was to become the object of large-scale "imperial" expansion.