Architect
1695, Austria - 1760, Salzburg
The man who designed the Mirabell Gardens. Franz Anton Danreiter created the definitive baroque layout around 1730 under Archbishop Firmian, transforming an earlier garden into one of the finest baroque garden compositions in the German-speaking world: the symmetrical parterre, the geometric hedging, the rose garden, and the famous Zwerglgarten (Dwarf Garden) with its collection of carved stone dwarf figures.
The Mirabell Gardens that visitors photograph today, and that appear in The Sound of Music, are substantially his creation.
Danreiter also produced a series of landscape engravings of Salzburg and its surroundings, some of the most important documentary records of the city’s 18th-century appearance. He was both the garden’s architect and its visual chronicler.
On the map
The 2 places on this page, where they actually stand.
Locations
Laid out c. 1730
The formal baroque gardens adjoining Mirabell Palace, freely accessible to all visitors. Franz Anton Danreiter created the definitive layout around 1730. Famous as the location where Julie Andrews performed "Do-Re-Mi" in The Sound of Music. The view toward Hohensalzburg Fortress is one of the most photographed scenes in the city.
A small walled garden within the Mirabell grounds displaying the surviving marble dwarf figures, carved around 1690 by Ottavio Mosto, Bernhard Michael Mandl and others. 28 originally, 17 today. Simultaneously grotesque, humorous, and oddly moving. Tucked behind the main garden, easily missed, and all the more rewarding for that.
