Great Hall of Coats of Arms

From 1740 onwards, Fromiller created the decoration of the Great Hall of Coats of Arms together with his workshop and assistants. But he was not the first to work in this space of the Landhaus in Klagenfurt. As early as 1590, a man named Blumenthal had been commissioned to decorate the hall. He had placed some 300 coats of arms on the walls, together with numerous depictions of the governors of the Land. Unfortunately, in the 1720s, a major fire destroyed much of the hall. The ceiling, in fact, is made of wood and is not vaulted, as it might appear to visitors. After the fire, Fromiller was commissioned to redesign the hall completely. He based his work on the original coats of arms, introducing a more orderly system: capital letters on the walls to create an alphabetical arrangement, accompanied by headings. Thanks to this reorganisation, today it is easy to recognise the coats of arms of the governors, ecclesiastical representatives, administrators and vicedomini of the Land. But Fromiller did not limit himself to coats of arms.

On the walls he also depicted key moments in Carinthian history. Among these, the investiture ceremony of the duke, with the representation of the Prince’s Stone, which can still be seen beneath the painting itself: an overturned Roman column, used as a throne during the duke’s investiture ceremony. The opposite wall depicts the founding of the city of Klagenfurt: in orange, Emperor Maximilian I can be seen handing over the so-called “Gabbrief” to the Estates of Carinthia in 1518. With this act, Klagenfurt became the capital of the Land. The ceiling, meanwhile, depicts the oath to Charles VI, father of Maria Theresa. When he visited his territories for the first time, in 1728, he was welcomed in Klagenfurt with great solemnity.

A banquet was held and the representatives of the hereditary offices swore an oath of loyalty, symbolically renewing their role. With its 665 coats of arms, the hall is a true treasure trove for scholars of heraldry, but also for those visiting it for the first time. Today, two screens allow visitors to search for each coat of arms. In fact, when one enters, the number of coats of arms is so high that it is not immediately possible to find the one you are looking for, which may be connected to family history or with a well-known family. And so now we have the possibility of searching for coats of arms simply and digitally.

All one has to do is enter the name of a person who served in the Land parliament and the system indicates the wall, the coat of arms and often also a brief explanation.