Chapel
The Schlosskapelle Mirabell is a small baroque chapel inside Mirabell Palace, built by Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau for his mistress Salome Alt. Today it is used by Salzburg’s Old Catholic community, a denomination that split from Rome in 1870. Usually closed to casual visitors.
Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau became Archbishop of Salzburg in 1587 and began one of the most transformative periods in the city’s architectural history. He also, unusually for an Archbishop, had a long and open domestic relationship with Salome Alt, with whom he fathered at least ten children. He built the original Schloss Altenau, later renamed Mirabell, for her. The Schlosskapelle was part of that complex: a private chapel for an Archbishop’s family that officially could not exist.
Wolf Dietrich’s political situation eventually became untenable. He was imprisoned by his successor and died in the Hohensalzburg Fortress in 1617. The palace was rebuilt and renamed by later archbishops. But the chapel remained.
Today the Schlosskapelle serves Salzburg’s Old Catholic community, a denomination that formed in 1870 when a group of bishops and laypeople refused to accept the First Vatican Council’s declaration of papal infallibility. Old Catholics maintain apostolic succession independently of Rome and have remained a small but theologically rigorous presence in the German-speaking world since.
The combination of original function (a private baroque devotional space for an Archbishop’s forbidden family) and current use (a principled minority denomination that rejected a specific papal claim) gives this modest chapel a density of meaning that no guidebook entry usually captures. The space is normally closed; it opens for Old Catholic services and occasional concerts.
People
archbishop1559 - 1617
The most transformative Archbishop in Salzburg's history. Wolf Dietrich demolished the old Romanesque cathedral, created Mirabell Palace, rebuilt the Residenz, and began reshaping the city along Italian baroque lines. Deposed and imprisoned in Hohensalzburg Fortress until his death.
merchant1568 - 1633
Wolf Dietrich's companion, for whom he built Altenau Palace (later renamed Mirabell) in 1606. They had 15 children together, 10 of whom survived. After Wolf Dietrich's imprisonment in 1611, Salome was exiled from Salzburg. She outlived him and died in Wels in 1633.
Curated routes
The old town is about 1.5 square kilometres and has 22 churches. This is the order I would walk them, from Holy Trinity on Makartplatz across both banks and up two city mountains to St. Sebastian. Three to four hours, and you see every corner of the old town on the way.
