WIEN CIVITAS

Wien has been selected by Roberto Amati in relation to the real history of european integration, then enlisted in the CITY OR CIVITAS category, accompanied by own fact SHEET useful to the comprehension, completed of historical MAPS AND IMAGES or with a direct linking to the related Blog contents dedicated to the the aeternitas and the future of Europe.

Wien is one of the most ancient cities of the history of European integration, signed in great part by Christianity. Who founded Wien? The region was inhabited since the Bronze Age era by peoples of the near Halstatt civilty, then by Celts tribes who called it Vindos: the name used by the Romans when founded a castra named Vindobona occupied by Legio X Gemina since the I century A.D. in the actual city centre of Wien. The fortress was seated in a strategic point on the ancient roman Aurelia way, starting from Cabillonum (Chalon-sur-Saone) and passing around the whole Alps chain through Augsburg, Budapest, Carnuntum and Syrmium (Sremska Mitrovica) to end in Narona (Vid) on the Adriatic Sea.

In origin civitas Wien was erected to procect the northern Limes on the Danube river of the Roman Respublica, inhabited by 15,000 people of locals and Italics who grew up commercial relations between foreigners and the near civitas, thanks to its particular position. Within the reform of Augustus (see Roman Empire) Wien had been elevated as capital of the Noricum province, always in danger of invasions by barbarians as witnessed by the emperor Marcus Aurelius who died there in 180 A.D. during a military campaign against the Marcomanni tribe (a fact remembered by the famous movie 'Gladiator').

With the reform of Constantine I (see Christian Empire), Wien was included in the imperial Italiae Diocesis but after the Germans invasion the city was rebuilt and served as seat of the Roman government until the 476 A.D., when the Western Roman Empire imploded and the population fled due to the Huns invasion of Pannonia and Wien was abandoned for several centuries. Eventhough, evidences of the Romans in the city is plentiful and ruins of the military camp have been found under the city centre, as well as fragments of the canal system and figurines.

Once annexed in VI century A.D. to the Reign of Bavarians ruled by the Agilolfings dinasty, Wien was conquered by Charlemagne and joined to the Carolingian Empire, then included in the Regna Germanorum as part of the Carinthia Mark and Duchy: then in 962 A.D. the emperor Otto I 'said the great' established the Österreich Mark (Eastern March) within the Reich Empire and enfeoffed to the Babenberg family who ruled Austria Margraviade and later Duchy by elevating Wien its capital in XII century A.D.. when Irish Benedictines established a monastic settlements in the civitas at the Schottenstift ('Scots Abbey'), originally home to a community of Irish monks connected to the brother monastery in Ratisbon.

Since then Wien got a central role in the history of european integration, in particular when the alsatian family of Habsburg were elected emperors of the Sacer Roman Empire in 1278 A.D. and joined progressively the Austria Duchy to the other possessions, making the city seat of the Aulic Council then capital of the Reich and later of the Austrian(-Hungarian) Empire and of one of the oldest universities of Europe. As capital of the christian regnum the city suffered two sieges by Turks in 1529 and 1683 A.D., both of which resulted in a successful defense. At the end of the Napoleon epoch Wien hosted the famous Congress of 1815 A.D., then began the long reign of Franz Joseph I and his wife the 'Princess Sissy' that transformed the city in a center of classical music with the School of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven: a place desired for the beautiful stylist buildings into the Ringstraße area, the inmense Prater Park and the special foods appreciated all over Europe that made people talk about 'Felix Austria'. Wien remained capital of the Republic of Austria when the empire went dissolved at the end of the First World War and a world center for culture until the Anschluss to Germany, hosting composers such as J.Brahms, G.Mahler, R.Strauss, while was emerging the 'Wien Secession' movement in art, the 'Second Wiennese School', the architecture and the 'Wien Circle', comparising Wien to Paris and London during the 'belle epoque'.

Nowadays, Wien is the capital of Austria and of the Mark Wien, most populous city of the country with its larger metropolitan area representing nearly one-third of the country's population. It is the cultural, economic, and political center of the country, the fifth-largest city by population in the European Union and the most populous of the cities on the river Danube, that run through Wien lying on the edge of the Wienerwald foothills of the Alps that separate the city from the more western parts of Austria at the transition to the Pannonian Basin: indeed Wien is far around 50 km west of Slovakia and northwest of Hungary, more 60 km south of Moravia region in Czech Republich, really close both to Prague and Budapest.

In 2001 A.D. the city center was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, sourrounding the Stephansdom (Cathedral), the Hofburg (ex-Royal Palace) containing the Imperial Treasury, the twin Naturhistorisches Museum and Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Wiener Musikverein (home of the Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra), the Wien Museum of modern art and the former imperial summer residence at Schönbrunn Palace, more hundreds of Baroque palaces and gardens, monuments and parks, not to forgive the Belvedere twins palaces. Due to the Christianity soul of the city, in Wiean are still present lots of notable churches and cathedrals such as: St. Rupert's Church, considered the oldest church in the city (ca. 800 A.D.); St. Stephen's Cathedral, the Gothic mother church of the Roman Catholic Archidiocese of Wien; the Schottenkirche monastir; the Maria am Gestade church, one of Wien's oldest churches and example of Gothic architecture; the Capuchin Church, home to the Imperial Crypt and burial site of many members of the Habsburg family; the Karlskirche, a Baroque church in the Karlsplatz and a popular tourist attraction. The patron of Wien is Clement Mary Hofbauer, a Moravian hermit and later a priest of the Redemptorist congregation.

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