Today, the church is visited mostly for its interesting catacombs - due to the unusual environment, bodies don't decompose in it. From 1631 to 1784, about 4,000 people were buried here. Today, one can still see hundreds of coffins adorned with flowers or skulls, as well as mummified corpses, some of them in baroque frock-coats and wigs. The most famous person buried in the catacombs is Pietro Metastasio, who wrote some of the librettos of Mozart's operas.

The building dates from the late Romanesque period - parts of the former Court and Barnabite Church St. Michael date from as far back as the first half of the thirteenth century. Experts believe that the altar room was built between 1327 and 1340, the lower parts of the tower later. In the ensuing centuries, the church was rebuilt and added to several times, it has stood in its present form since 1792.

Also worth viewing are the excavations on the square in front of the church. Vienna's city archeologists uncovered the remains of a Roman settlement there in the years 1990 and 1991.

St. Michael's Church

1., Michaelerplatz
U3: Herrengasse
Tel. 533 80 00
daily 7 am - 10 pm

Guided tours through burial vault:
0650 – 533 8003
www.michaelerkirche.at