Remarks
With the nearby Fleischmarkt district, the Hoher Markt forms the historic centre of Vienna. Although the buildings around the square were rebuilt after 1945 and are of no particular interest, numerous traces of its past are still visible. The Vermählungsbrunnen, the «Virgin Mary's Marriage Fountain», on the square itself is worth a look. Vestiges of the Roman period were discovered under the square (it was the forum of the legion camp of Vindiobona). The Neidhart-Fresken, the city's oldest secular frescoes, painted in around 1400 were recently discovered on a building in a nearby street. The frescoes took their inspiration from the songs of Neidhard, a famous 13C troubadour. Further up Wipplingerstrasse are two large Baroque palaces standing opposite one another, the Böhmische Hofkanzlei (Bohemian Chancellery) with mighty atlantes framing the portals and the Altes Rathaus the city's former town hall, dating back to the 14C but modified in the Baroque period. In the courtyard of no 8 is the Andromeda-Brunnen*, a beautiful fountain by Raphaël Donner (1741) depicting the story of Andromeda being rescued by Perseus. On the ground floor is a permanent exhibition, the Ausstellung der Österreichischen Freiheitskampf, commemorating the Austrians who opposed the Nazis (entrance in Salvatorgasse), a reminder that, while 600 000 Austrians lost their lives fighting in the German army or were killed in air raids, nearly 140,000 died in concentration camps. Two fine medieval churches in this quarter, Maria am Gestade* Our Lady of the Waterside) and Ruprechtskirche (Church of St Rupert) are noteworthy because of their age.