Archbishopric of Salzburg

The Archbishopric of Salzburg was a Prince-Bishopric and state of the Holy Roman Empire for many centuries. The diocese arose from St Peter's Abbey, founded in the German stem duchy of Bavaria about 696 by Saint Rupert at the former Roman city of Iuvavum (Salzburg).

In the 13th century it reached Imperial immediacy and independency from Bavaria, and remained an ecclesiastical state until its secularisation to the short-lived Electorate of Salzburg in 1803. The Prince-Archbishops had never obtained electoral dignity; actually of the five Prince-archbishoprics of the Holy Roman Empire—with Mainz, Trier and Cologne—Magdeburg and Salzburg got nothing from the Golden Bull of 1356. The last Prince-Archbishop exercising secular authority was Count Hieronymus von Colloredo, an early patron of Salzburg native Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.