Vaults
The vaults consist of an interconnected series of ten subterranean vaulted rooms, built at various times as more space was needed.
The visible 107 metal sarcophagi and five heart urns range in style from puritan plain to exuberant rococo.
The bodies of 145 nobles, plus urns containing the hearts or cremated remains of four others, are deposited here. There is only one space left. They include 12 Emperors and 18 Empresses. The most recent entombment150 was in 2011.
From other families there are 32 spouses, plus four others,15 41 47 117 who have found their resting place here. Everyone else in the Imperial Crypt was born with the Habsburgs-only title of Archduke or Archduchess.
In 1960, with the various vaults overcrowded, a major rearrangement project began which resulted in the construction of the Children's Columnbarium and the New Vault. At the same time many bodies were moved to those new areas, others were moved from the Tuscan Vault and Ferdinand’s Vault and walled up into the corner piers of Ferdinand's Vault.
Subscript numbers behind the names of most persons listed in this article are used to avoid confusion in cross-references due to the similarity or duplication of names over the many generations. A unique small appears with the name of every person buried in the Imperial Crypt. The number corresponds with that person's entry in the listing below of occupants of each Vault, to which it is hyperlinked. When necessary to establish continuity, a person buried elsewhere is assigned a number preceded by an and then listed in the Selected Other Habsburgs section.
Read more about this topic: Imperial Crypt
Famous quotes containing the word vaults:
“Power, I said. Power to walk into the gold vaults of the nations, into the secrets of kings, into the holy of holies. Power to make multitudes run squealing in terror at the touch of my little invisible finger. Even the moon’s frightened of me. Frightened to death. The whole world’s frightened to death.”
—R.C. Sherriff (1896–1975)
“Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savage stands on the unelastic plank of famine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I wish that friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must plant itself on the ground, before it vaults over the moon. I wish it to be a little of a citizen, before it is quite a cherub.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)