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Mozartplatz and the Residenzplatz





Judengasse, the eastern extension of Getreidegasse, funnels crowds up into the Mozartplatz , home to a weathered bronze statue of the composer by Munich sculptor Ludwig Schwanthaler. In contrast to the impish white-wigged youth pictured on most souvenirs and chocolate boxes, Mozart is here given a more dignified portrayal; an earnest adult visionary in flowing, toga-like overcoat. Erected in 1842, the statue represents the first occasion on which Salzburg's urban elite realized that the city could promote itself to potential visitors by associating itself with the famous composer. The square is overlooked by a pinkish tower which houses the Glockenspiel , a seventeenth-century musical clock whose chimes attract crowds at 7am, 11am and 6pm. The winding, cobbled alleys leading off Mozartplatz to the east preserve something of the medieval street plan: narrow, tunnel-like Pfeifergasse is a typical example. One of its former inhabitants was sixteenth-century medical pioneer Paracelsus, who in 1524 briefly set up a healing practice at no.11, operating out of the public bathhouse owned by his friend Hans Rappl.

The complex of buildings to the south and west of Mozartplatz exudes the ecclesiastical and temporal power once wielded by Salzburg's archbishops, whose erstwhile living quarters, the Residenz , dominate the western side of the Residenzplatz . Begun in the sixteenth century during the reign of Wolf Dietrich and completed by his successor Marcus Sitticus, the complex spreads two vast colonnaded wings around a central courtyard. Inside lies a sequence of bombastic Prunkraume , or state rooms (daily 10am-5pm; oS91/?6.61), which can be viewed with the accompaniment of an English-language audio commentary. Highlights are relatively easy to pick out: the Schone Galerie has ceilings by Rottmayr and a copy of the mysterious but overhyped Graeco-Roman statue, the Young Man of Magdalensberg , while the Audienzsaal is decked with valuable Flemish tapestries.

One floor above the Prunkraume, the Residenzgalerie (April-Sept daily 10am-5pm; Oct-March closed Wed; oS50/?3.63) offers a fine display of archiepiscopal acquisitions from over the centuries, beginning in the entrance hall with Caspar Memberger's mid-sixteenth-century cycle of paintings depicting the Flood. The collection's two most valued works, Rembrandt's small but compelling Old Woman Praying , thought to be a portrait of the artist's mother, and Rubens' Allegory of Charles V as Master of the World (1664), a blatant piece of Habsburg propaganda showing the (long-deceased) emperor receiving the gift of the globe from a cherub, share wall space with a host of lesser-known landscapes and still lifes that nonetheless provide a useful overview of seventeenth-century Flemish art. Of the Austrian works on display, a Rottmayr Pieta and Maulpertsch's Last Supper are full of sombre

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melodrama, while Hans Makart's 1871 portrait of his first wife, Amalie, presents a human side to this normally stuffy, bourgeois painter.

In case all these old masters leave you yearning for a taste of modern art, the Academia Gallery (Mon-Fri 11am-6pm, Sat & Sun 11am-1pm; free; www.kunstnet.at/academia ) on the ground floor of the Residenz is probably Salzburg's leading venue for small-scale contemporary art shows - ask at the tourist office to find out what's on.


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11/23/2008 3:53:26 PM

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