The Romans founded a settlement here and named the place Juvavum
but it became best known for its brisk trade in salt from the nearby Dürnberg mines, and Salzburg was the name that stuck. In time an even brisker trade would be conducted by men in red robes, as the town became and remained a power base for the mighty archbishops of the German church. Their wealth led to much splendid building besides the sprawling bulk of the castle: a massive Dom, or cathedral, completed in the 8th century, was the talk of Europe for five hundred years due to the vast size of its towers. Eventually it was destroyed by Barbarossa, and replaced with a smaller but more elegant Romanesque building which still stands. Also still standing, also elegantly, is the elaborate Archbishops’ Residenz, once home to some of Salzburg’s wealthiest red robes; now secularized, it offers a museum of fine art to go with its own extravagant architecture.
Salzburgians will seldom fail to mention that Vienna has borrowed more than just Mozart over the years. When the town — which from the 1700s was a bit of a political football, kicked around among several European powers — finally landed in Austria’s hands, the new management celebrated by grabbing the most famous art and hauling it upriver. Quite a bit of artistic and historical interest remains, however, housed in a variety of prominent buildings including the Schloss Mirabell (a small palace originally built for an archbishop’s mistress), the baroque church of (take a breath) Stiftskirche zu Unserer Lieben Faru Himmerlfahrt und St. Erentraud, plus old St.
Erentrudis — noted above — which is more formally called the Benediktinerinnenstift Nonnberg, and is believed to have been the earliest convent established in German-speaking Europe. On the outskirts of town, the Carolino Augusteum Museum tends a worthwhile collection of Flemish and French masters, along with a great deal of fascinating material unearthed in excavations made in the area of Salzburg’s Dom.
