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Karntnerstrasse's most interesting sights lie off the street itself, most conspicuously in the Neuer Markt to the west, formerly the city's medieval flour market. The centrepiece of the square is the Donnerbrunnen , a Baroque fountain designed by Georg Raphael Donner. The nudity of the figures perched on the edge of the fountain - they represent the four Austrian tributaries of the Danube - was deemed too risque by the Empress Maria Theresia, who had the lead statues removed in 1770 to be melted down into cannon. They were returned unharmed in 1801, and in 1873 replaced by bronze copies: the young male figure of Traun, in particular, depicted dipping his triton into the waters, clearly showed rather too much buttock for contemporary tastes, hence the judiciously placed fig leaf. The square's grim-looking Kapuzinerkirche hides one of the premier sights in Vienna: its crypt, the Kaisergruft (daily 9.30am-4pm; oS40/?2.91), which has been the unlikely resting place of the Habsburgs (with just a few notable exceptions) since 1633. The crypt is entered from a doorway to the left of the church. While a monk relieves you of your money, notices demand a respectful " Silentium!" - but don't let them kid you, this place is a tourist attraction above all else. Inside, though the crypt isn't gloomy, it is, nevertheless, an intriguing insight into the Habsburgs' fascination with death. As you enter the burial vault, you're confronted with the monster Baroque sarcophagi of Leopold I and Josef I, both designed by Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt, and the latter sporting ghoulish skulls in full head armour below and with bat wings above. Those of Karl VI and his wife are his'n'hers designs by Rococo artist Balthasar Ferdinand Moll: his sits on lions, with toothy skulls sporting crowns at each corner; hers sits on eagles, with women in mourning veils at each corner. The main focus and highlight of the crypt is Moll's obscenely large double tomb for the Empress Maria Theresia and her husband, Franz Stephan, immediately to the left as you enter. Over 3m high and wide, 6m long, and smothered in Rococo decorations, the imperial couple are depicted sitting up in bed, as if indignantly accusing one another of snoring. Immediately below their feet lies the simple copper coffin of their son, Josef II, to whom such pomposity was anathema. It was he who instigated the idea of a reusable coffin, and issued a decree enforcing its use in all funerals - not surprisingly, given the Viennese obsession with elaborate sendoffs, the emperor was eventually forced to back down. Several more of Maria Theresia's sixteen children lie in the shadow of their mother, in ornate Rococo coffins, as does the only non-Habsburg among the crypt's 143 occupants, Karoline Fuchs-Mollard, the empress's governess. It's all downhill aesthetically after Maria Theresia, though the gloomy postwar bunker of the New Vault features some jazzy concrete vaulting. Star corpses here include Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico, who was executed in 1867, and Marie Louise, Napoleon's second wife. Their son, the Duke of Reichstadt - or "L'Aiglon" - who died of tuberculosis at the age of 21, was also buried here until 1940, when Hitler had his remains transferred to Paris as a gesture of goodwill. Finally, there's Franz-Josef I 's sarcophagus, permanently strewn with fresh flowers. Even more revered, though, is his wife, Empress Elisabeth, who was assassinated in 1898, her tomb draped in Hungarian wreaths and colours. On the other side of the emperor is the coffin of their eldest son, Crown Prince Rudolf, who committed suicide in 1889. The chapel beyond contains the Kaisergruft's most recent arrival, Empress Zita, who died in 1989 in exile and was buried here with imperial pomp and circumstance.
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