The vertigo one feels is not spiritual. It is political.
I had been told that everything began in the cathedral. I entered this morning and now I understand why. It is not a temple: it is a demonstration. Everything in it is designed to produce a single effect on whoever enters, and that effect is not devotion. It is submission.
The vaults rise to a height that has no liturgical justification, gold covers every surface as if bare stone were an indignity, and when one raises one's eyes toward the dome the vertigo one feels is not spiritual. It is political.
The vertigo one feels is not spiritual. It is political.
A man built this. A single man who decided that his cathedral had to be this overwhelming, and who had the resources of an entire state to make it reality.
I have thought much about those who chose that man. The cathedral chapter—a handful of canons, most of them younger sons of the great families of the territory—met under these same vaults to decide who would be the next absolute lord of Salzburg. Imagine the scene. The Thuns against the Lodrons, the Firmians against the Colloredos, each family moving its pieces for months to place their candidate on a throne that would turn him overnight into ruler, judge, general, and shepherd of souls. Everything I have seen these days—the fortress, the domes, the bridges, the walls—was decided by men who came to power through intrigues in the corridors of this temple. Beneath each dome there is a family that won a game.
I then crossed to the Residenz. If the cathedral is where power was manufactured, the palace is where it was exhibited.
Beneath each dome there is a family that won a game.
I have walked through empty halls with painted ceilings and crystal chandeliers that no longer illuminate anything.
I have walked through empty halls with painted ceilings and crystal chandeliers that no longer illuminate anything. In one of them there were rows of gilded chairs oriented toward nowhere, as if arranged for an audience that no one has convened, and in a corner a woman sitting reading a book, completely oblivious to the frescoes that unfolded above her head. The entire court of the prince-archbishop now fits in a distracted reader. There is something in that image that I have not been able to get out of my head all day.
I reached a window and stopped.
The cathedral where they had elected him, the square where he manifested himself before the people, and the fortress that protected him. All visible from a single window.
From there I could see the cathedral square framed by the window frame like a painting, and in the background, above, the fortress. I understood that this was the daily view of power: the cathedral where they had elected him, the square where he manifested himself before the people, and the fortress that protected him. All visible from a single window. All his. You asked me before I left if I believed a man could govern a territory for decades without going mad or tyrannical. I am beginning to understand the question.
At the end of the afternoon I entered a room where they keep the liturgical objects of the archbishopric. The prince-archbishops of Salzburg, or what remains of them, are there inside.
The power they enclosed in this city has ended up enclosed itself.
Reduced to gilded statues flanking a door. Life-sized bishops with miters and crosiers, who in their day would have presided over processions and dictated sentences and received the kiss on the ring, now converted into pieces stored behind a cord. The power they enclosed in this city has ended up enclosed itself. It seemed to me that this was the closest thing to justice I have seen since I arrived.
I left at dusk and climbed the Mönchsberg seeking air. I needed distance after so much interior.
The city continues performing a play without function.
Passing by a window I stopped. In the glass was Salzburg again, trapped in the reflection. But this time it was not the tremulous reflection of water, but something different: a sharp reflection, frozen, sealed behind glass.
In the glass was Salzburg again, trapped in the reflection.
The entire old world put into a window that no one opens. I saw my own silhouette superimposed on the towers and the fortress and I did not know if it was I who looked at the city or the city that looked at me.
I have been here four days. I have seen Salzburg from outside, from above, from within. I still do not know what remains for me to see, but I know it exists. This city keeps something that is not in the stones nor in the gold nor in the vaults. Something that only shows itself when one stops looking for it.