St. Michael's Church

This guide to St. Michael's Church in Vienna starts beneath the floor, where about four thousand bodies were sealed into a crypt between 1631 and 1784 and, thanks to an unusual mix of temperature, dry air and hidden airflow, never fully decomposed. You'll hear how skin, hair and even burial silk survived in certain coffins, and meet Pietro Metastasio, the era's most celebrated opera librettist, among those interred there. The guide also traces a memorial service held in this church in December 1791, just days after a composer's death, and what was performed there for the first time.