Church
A Baroque church on Kajetanerplatz built 1685-1697 for the Theatine Order by Giovanni Gaspare Zuccalli. The last Italian-designed church in Salzburg, and one of the most politically fraught building projects the city ever saw.
The Theatines were a Counter-Reformation order founded in 1524 to reform the clergy through strict community life. Max Gandolph von Kuenburg brought them to Salzburg in 1685 and hired Giovanni Gaspare Zuccalli, an Italian master builder fresh from the Theatine Church in Munich, to design the complex on Kajetanerplatz. The broad facade, the large tambour dome flooding the nave with light, and the festive stucco of the Brenno brothers are all distinctively Italian Baroque, transplanted almost intact.
Max Gandolph died in 1687. His successor, Johann Ernst von Thun, had no patience for the Theatines or for what he called the “Welsch Baroque” style. Zuccalli spent years fighting for his final payment. Unknown donors eventually covered the gap and the building was consecrated in 1700. Thun went on to commission Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach for every subsequent major project. The architectural era ended here.
The site carries an older charge. Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau had originally intended this as his burial place. A church stood here from around 1150. The medieval Raplbad on the same ground was where Paracelsus worked during his time in Salzburg, before his burial at Sebastiansfriedhof nearby.
Inside, the oldest surviving organ in Salzburg stands in the gallery above the entrance, built around 1700 by Christoph Egedacher. The Heilige Treppe (Holy Stairs), 28 steps modelled on Rome’s Scala Sancta and climbed only on one’s knees, opens to the faithful on Saturday mornings for one hour. Along with St Erhards Church, it is one of the last two Italian-built Baroque churches in Salzburg. Restored 2019-2023.
People
archbishop1622 - 1687
A Counter-Reformation hardliner who in 1684 ordered the expulsion of the Protestants of the Defereggen Valley, then part of Salzburg's territory in East Tyrol. He also commissioned the Kajetanerkirche in the Altstadt.
architect1629 - 1700
Swiss-Italian architect from the Graubunden Zuccalli dynasty who designed the Kajetanerkirche (1685-1697) for Archbishop Max Gandolph. His dismissal by the next archbishop marks the end of Italian-Swiss architectural dominance in Salzburg.
physician1493 - 1541
Revolutionary physician, alchemist, and philosopher who spent his final years in Salzburg and is buried at St. Sebastian's Cemetery. He worked at the salt mines of Bad Durrnberg and practised at a medieval bathhouse on the site that later became the Kajetanerkirche. His grave remains a place of pilgrimage.
