Dynastic History | Kapuzinergruft, Neuer Markt, Vienna — The Bodies Went to the Friars, the Hearts Did Not

Empress Anna's will, made in 1617, left money for a Capuchin friary on the Neuer Markt with a burial vault beneath it, for herself and for her husband Matthias. She died in 1618 and he in 1619; neither of them saw it. Construction started in 1622 under Ferdinand II, the church was consecrated in 1632, and in 1633 the two coffins were carried across from the Königinkloster and set in the founders' vault. A mendicant order whose rule is poverty had been made the keeper of a dynasty's dead. Its friars still are.

What went into the vault was not the whole body. For most burials from the middle of the seventeenth century until 1878, the heart was removed and sent in a silver urn to the Loreto chapel of the Augustinerkirche, and the viscera went to the ducal crypt under St Stephen's. Three churches, three deposits, one person. The practice is dated from the death of Ferdinand IV in 1654 to that of Archduke Franz Karl in 1878.

The totals do not agree with each other. The City of Vienna's historical register counts 138 metal coffins; the crypt's own material says about 150 people rest there; published accounts fall in between, depending on whether heart and urn burials are counted and on who is counted as family. The last interment was Zita, on 1 April 1989.

The stairs down begin beside a ticket desk on Tegetthoffstraße, and the Capuchins still run the place.

📸 Cover: sarcophagi in the Leopoldsgruft of the Kapuzinergruft — closed metal coffins, no remains visible, DALIBRI, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons