Anyone traveling through Austria is familiar with the domes and onion-shaped towers of churches in towns and villages. They are the characteristic hallmark of the Baroque architectural style, which reached its peak during the Counter-Reformation and continues to shape the cityscape of Innsbruck to this day. The most prominent churches—such as the Cathedral, St. John’s Church, or the Jesuit Church—are built in the Baroque style. Places of worship were meant to be splendid and magnificent, symbols of the triumph of the true faith. The exuberant, all-encompassing piety of elites and subjects alike was reflected in art and culture: great drama, pathos, suffering, splendor, and glory combined to form the Baroque—a style that left a lasting imprint on the entire Catholic sphere of influence of the Habsburgs and their allies between Spain and Hungary. From the seventeenth century onward, the Gumpp family of master builders and Johann Georg Fischer fundamentally transformed Innsbruck’s cityscape. The Old Provincial Government Building in the Old Town, the New Provincial Government Building on Maria-Theresien-Strasse, countless palazzi, paintings, and sculptures—the Baroque was the defining stylistic force of the House of Habsburg in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and became embedded in everyday life. The bourgeoisie did not wish to lag behind the nobility and princes and therefore had their private residences built in the Baroque style as well. Farmhouses were adorned with images of saints, depictions of the Virgin Mary, and representations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Yet the Baroque was more than an architectural style; it was a way of life that emerged in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War. The Ottoman threat from the east, culminating in the two sieges of Vienna, dominated the empire’s foreign policy, while the Reformation shaped domestic affairs. Baroque culture became a central element of Catholicism and its political self-representation in public space—a countermodel to the austere and rigorous way of life advocated by Calvin and Luther. Christian holidays were introduced to brighten everyday life. Architecture, music, and painting were rich, full, and exuberant. In theatres such as the Comedihaus in Innsbruck, dramas with religious themes were performed. Ways of the Cross with chapels and representations of the crucified Christ crisscrossed the landscape. Popular piety, expressed through pilgrimages and the veneration of Mary and the saints, became firmly embedded in everyday church life. Multiple crises shaped daily existence. In addition to war and famine, plague epidemics occurred particularly frequently in the seventeenth century. Baroque piety was used as a means of educating subjects, teaching them to interpret these calamities as expressions of God’s dissatisfaction—misfortunes that could be remedied through a devout and virtuous way of life. Although the sale of indulgences was no longer common practice in the Catholic Church after the sixteenth century, vivid notions of heaven and hell persisted. Through a virtuous life—that is, living in accordance with Catholic values and displaying proper conduct as a subject within the divine order—one could come significantly closer to paradise. So-called Christian devotional literature became the most popular reading material following the educational reforms of the eighteenth century and the rising literacy of the population. The suffering of the Crucified for humanity was regarded as a symbol of the hardship endured by subjects on earth within the feudal system. Through votive paintings, people sought assistance in times of hardship or expressed gratitude—most often to the Virgin Mary—for surviving dangers and illnesses. Particularly impressive votive paintings can be admired in the Wilten Basilica. The historian Ernst Hanisch described the Baroque and its influence on the Austrian way of life as follows:

“Austria emerged in its modern form as a crusading imperialism—externally against the Turks and internally against the Reformers. This brought bureaucracy and the military, and externally a multiethnic society. State and Church attempted to control the intimate sphere of citizens’ lives. Everyone had to reform themselves through the confessional; sexuality was restricted, norm-compliant sexuality enforced. People were systematically trained to dissemble.”

Rituals and submissive behavior toward authority left deep traces in everyday culture, distinguishing Catholic countries such as Austria and Italy to this day from Protestant-influenced regions such as Germany, England, or Scandinavia. Austrians’ passion for academic titles has its roots in Baroque hierarchies. The term Baroque prince refers to a particularly patriarchal and patronizing politician who knows how to captivate an audience with grand gestures. While political sobriety is valued in Germany, the style of Austrian politicians remains theatrical—entirely in keeping with the Austrian adage “Schaumamal” (“let’s see”).