The story of this place
Rising 136 metres over Vienna, the Stephansdom has been the city's spiritual heart since its Gothic reconstruction from 1359. Mozart married here in 1782 and was blessed at his sparse funeral here in 1791. Its great bell, the Pummerin, was originally cast in 1711 from cannons captured from the Ottoman army after the failed siege of 1683. The cathedral survived the 1683 Turkish bombardment and Napoleon's occupation, but in April 1945, as the Nazis retreated, fire from nearby fighting gutted the roof and cracked the Pummerin. Austrians rebuilt it as a symbol of national revival, reopening in 1952.