St. Peter's Cemetery

St. Peter's Cemetery Review

The eerie but intimate Petersfriedhof, or St. Peter's Cemetery, is the oldest Christian graveyard in Austria, in the present condition dating back to 1627. Enclosed on three sides by elegant wrought-iron grilles, Baroque arcades contain chapels belonging to Salzburg's old patrician families. The graveyard is far from mournful: the individual graves are tended with loving care, decorated with candles, fir branches, and flowers—especially pansies (because the name means "thoughts"). In Crypt XXXI is the grave of Santino Solari, architect of the cathedral; in XXXIX that of Sigmund Haffner, a patron for whom Mozart composed a symphony and named a serenade. The final communal crypt LIV (by the so-called "catacombs") contains the body of Mozart's sister Nannerl and the torso of Joseph Haydn's younger brother Michael (his head is in St. Peter's church). The cemetery is in the shadow of the Monchsberg mount; note the early Christian tombs carved in the rock face.