Pestsäule Auerspergplatz

Pestsäule Auerspergplatz stands on a small, green triangular square in Linz’s inner city, surrounded by residential and commercial buildings. The obelisk rises from a square base resting on four spheres. Its narrow, four-sided form ends in a double cross, the only example of its kind in Linz. Auerspergplatz took shape around 1850, roughly two centuries after the monument was built.

The city erected the column in 1650 after the Thirty Years’ War ended and plague struck Linz in 1649. Its original inscription gives thanks to the God of peace for deliverance from war. Two oval plaques joined the base during the nineteenth century, including one Latin text recalling the war’s end and the plague’s cessation. The other plaque carries the words “Praised be Jesus Christ.”

The column originally stood on Landstraße near the Karmelitenkirche, then at the edge of the old city. Renovation in 1850 preceded its probable relocation to Auerspergplatz around 1872. The site now places a monument of survival among everyday city streets and quiet greenery. Look upward for the double cross, a small detail found nowhere else among Linz’s monuments.