St. Charles Church in Vienna

Vivaldis final resting place.

In 1741 Antonio Vivaldi was buried in the cemetery near the Karlskirche, the "Spittaler Gottesacker", which was abandoned in the 18th century. Today, the building of the Technical University Vienna stands on this site. Like Mozart's grave, the place of Vivaldi's death has not been preserved. Only a simple stone plaque serves as a reminder of the great composer.

Nowadays, the Karlskirche is not only the Viennese branch of the Prague "Knights of the Cross of the Red Star" and one of the most impressive buildings in Vienna. In recent years, it has also become an outstanding venue for concerts in Vienna. It is a lively center for historical performances of the works of Mozart and Vivaldi and the seat of the ORCHESTRA 1756 which regularly performs concerts here.

In the year after the last great plague epidemic, Emperor Charles VI vowed to build a church for his namesake, Charles Borromeo. An architectural competition was held, in which Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach won against Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena and Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt, among others. Construction began as early as 1716 and was continued by his son Joseph Emanuel after Fischer's death in 1723 and completed in 1737. The church originally had a direct line of sight to the imperial Hofburg and was also an imperial patron parish church until 1918.