Historic Centre of the City of Salzburg

 Austria
Salzburg
N47 48 2 E13 2 36
Date of Inscription: 1996
Criteria: (ii)(iv)(vi)
Property : 236 ha
Buffer zone: 467 ha
Ref: 784
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• AT – Historic Center Of The City Of Salzburg

Salzburg has managed to preserve an extraordinarily rich urban fabric, developed over the period from the Middle Ages to the 19th century when it was a city-state ruled by a prince-archbishop. Its Flamboyant Gothic art attracted many craftsmen and artists before the city became even better known through the work of the Italian architects Vincenzo Scamozzi and Santini Solari, to whom the centre of Salzburg owes much of its Baroque appearance. This meeting-point of northern and southern Europe perhaps sparked the genius of Salzburg’s most famous son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose name has been associated with the city ever since.

Salzburg is an outstanding example of an ecclesiastical city-state, peculiar to the Holy Roman Empire, from Prussia to Italy. Most disappeared as political and administrative units in the early 19th century and adopted alternative trajectories of development. No other example of this type of political organism has survived so completely, preserving its urban fabric and individual buildings to such a remarkable degree as Salzburg.

Salzburg is the point where the Italian and German cultures met and which played a crucial role in the exchanges between these two cultures. The result is a Baroque town that has emerged intact from history, and exceptional material testimony of a particular culture and period. The centre of Salzburg owes much of its Baroque appearance to the Italian architects Vincenzo Scamozzi and Santino Solari.

The Salzburg skyline, against a backdrop of mountains, is characterized by its profusion of spires and domes, dominated by the fortress of HohenSalzburg. It contains a number of buildings, both secular and ecclesiastical, of very high quality from periods ranging from the late Middle Ages to the 20th Century.  There is a clear separation, visible on the ground and on the map, between the lands of the Prince-Archbishops and those of the burghers. The former is characterized by its monumental buildings – the Cathedral, the Residence, the Franciscan Abbey, the Abbey of St Peter – and its open spaces, the Domplatz in particular. The burghers’ houses, by contrast, are on small plots and front onto narrow streets, with the only open spaces provided by the three historic markets. Salzburg is rich in buildings from the Gothic period onwards, which combine to create a townscape and urban fabric of great individuality and beauty.

Salzburg is also intimately associated with many important artists and musicians, preeminent among them Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Criterion (ii): Salzburg played a crucial role in the interchange between Italian and German cultures, resulting in a flowering of the two cultures and a long-lasting exchange between them.

Criterion (iv): Salzburg is an exceptionally important example of a European ecclesiastical city-state, with a remarkable number of high-quality buildings, both secular and ecclesiastical, from periods ranging from the late Middle Ages to the 20th century.

Criterion (vi): Salzburg is noteworthy for its associations with the arts, and in particular with music, in the person of its famous son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Suggested Bases:

Salzburg is a city in Austria, near the border with Germany’s Bavaria state, with a population of 150,000. It was the setting for the movie The Sound of Music, so you may think you know all there is to see in Salzburg if you have seen the movie. Admittedly, it is difficult not to burst into song when you’re walking along the Salzach River, or climbing up to the Hohensalzburg fortress, which looms over the city. But there is a lot more to this compact, courtly city than Julie Andrews and Wolfgang Mozart, who was born here. Salzburg, which has been inhabited since the Neolithic period, is the fourth-largest city in Austria (after Vienna, Graz and Linz) and the capital of the federal state of Salzburg. In 45 AD, it was a Roman establishment. The Bavarians took over in the 6th century. At the end of the 16th century, under Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau, the transformation of the medieval town into the “Rome of the North” began, with new buildings following the italian baroque style [read more].

Wels is a city in Upper Austria (Oberösterreich) [read more].

Graz is the capital of Styria (Steiermark) and the second largest city of Austria with a population of just below 300,000 – about 40,000 of which are students of its six universities. It has been a vital urban centre for both Styria, Austria and Slovenia, and has produced a number of talents in many fields, ranging from the inventor Nikola Tesla to the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Graz maintains a balance between its illustrious past and modern present and features spectacular architecture from all periods, while the warm and sunny climate influenced by the closeness to the Mediterranean makes it a very nice city to visit. The roots of Graz can be traced back to Roman times, when a small fort was built where the city centre is today; Slovenians later built a larger fortress in the same place. The name “Graz” is derived from the Slovenian word gradec, which means small castle [read more].