"Pietate et iustitia. – Piety and justice."
Motto of Emperor Ferdinands III.
The highly baroque Leopold Vault lies beneath the nave of the Capuchin Church. Imposing pillars divide the space into three naves with cross vaults, creating a hall-like effect. In 1657, the young Emperor Leopold I. (N°37) ordered an extension to the crypt, as the small original crypt had barely enough room for the sarcophagus of his father, Ferdinand III. (N°27), who had died in the same year.
The Leopold Crypt houses 16 sarcophagi, the heart urn of Empress Claudia Felicitas (N°24), the heart urn epitaph of Maria Annas, Queen of Portugal (N°9) , and twelve simple, unadorned 17th-century children's coffins, which once stood in the Angels' Vault, rest in twelve arcosolia (columbarium niches).
Personalities
in the Leopold Vault