Now I can say I’ve been to multiple old churches in Vienna. Each one was more beautiful than the next. First, I visited Peterskirche, which amazed me because it was the first European church that I have seen in person. The next day, we went to Stephansdom and Kathy’s friend Lisa gave us a detailed, guided tour about the architecture and art history of the church. After the tour, I went into the catacombs under Stephansdom. I was slightly underwhelmed, probably because of my expectations that the catacombs would be similar to those in Paris, which I’ve seen lots of pictures of. Technically we were not allowed to take pictures, but I still ended up with some good ones, which I included in this blog. We went as a class to see a Vivaldi concert inside Karlskirche. The architecture combined with Vivaldi’s beautiful music was an amazing experience and I thoroughly enjoyed the music.
We had our first week of classes this week, which were really interesting. I was nervous at first because I hadn’t taken a European history class since my junior year of high school when I took AP European History. Initially I was slightly lost, but I was soon amazed how much European history started to come back to me, especially when we got to the Protestant Reformation. I don’t know exactly what it is about the American education system, but I learned about the Protestant Reformation so many times in grade school, I think I might be an expert on it. Even so, I thought that the way Kathy talked about the Protestant Reformation and the magnification of new ideas was particularly fascinating. Kathy said that a lot of revolutionary ideas (in the figurative or literal sense usually aren’t new, their time has just come, and they become revolutionary ideas due to the right conditions. For example, the founder of the heretical group, the Hussites, communicated a lot of Martin Luther’s criticisms of Catholicism centuries before Luther did, but Huss was burned at the stake because the conditions were not ripe for his ideas to spread. When Luther preached ideas similar to Huss’, the conditions were precipitous, and he started the Protestant Reformation. I’ve never thought about history that way and I really enjoyed hearing that explanation.
Another historical theory that Kathy discussed in class this week was the idea that changes in mentality and attitude within the Enlightenment prompted technological advances, not the other way around. People began to approach the world with a more humanist, activist, pro-active approach as opposed to a superstitious, religious one. Once this shift occurred, then technological advancements began to take shape as societies tried different techniques to better humanity and prevent death and tragedy.
In addition to churches, I also went to the Kuntshistorisches (Art History) Museum as well as the Imperial Treasury this week. Lisa led us on a tour of the Art History Museum and I visited the Imperial Treasury with several other students during our free time. As a huge art history nerd, I was in heaven at the Kuntshistorisches Museum and I am definitely planning to go back one if not multiple times during my time in Vienna. The imperial treasury housed all the robes, crowns, jewelry, and various other fancy artifacts and treasures of the Habsburg Dynasty throughout the centuries. It also housed lots of reliquaries for the relics of saints. We got audio guides for our time at the museum so we could really understand what the history and purposes of the objects were. By the end of the museum, I was almost unimpressed by gold and jewels because I had seen so much of them. In both the museum and the Imperial Treasury there were giftshops, but I still have yet to buy a souvenir. I definitely plan on buying a few trinkets for myself and friends and family to remember my time here, but I just can’t seem to decide what to get.
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