ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the reorganization of the city of Temeswar (today Timișoara in Romania) by the Habsburg Monarchy after its capture from the Ottomans. This reorganization began immediately after 1716 when Temeswar and the province it belonged to were awarded a special status and were ruled directly by Vienna (and not as part of Hungary to which it was added only in 1778). Thus the city was rebuilt according to a plan that mainly reflected the military, fiscal, and representational considerations of the center and the dynasty. Among the first measures, a number of new churches, new fortifications and barracks, hydraulic works, and urban infrastructures were built. The Habsburg dynasty’s influence on the urban development of Temeswar was felt most strongly in the religious field through the promotion of Catholicism in the otherwise multi-ethnic and multi-confessional city. The ruling family sponsored the first public monument and a church dedicated to St. John of Nepomuk, who was the family’s patron saint. At the same time, Emperor Charles VI acted as the patron of the Catholic cathedral. Two votive columns on the city’s main squares completed the sacralization of urban space in the name of the dynasty.
