Historical Weaponry

The ‘Historical Weaponry’ Collection has held a prominent place in Salzburg Museum since its founding. It grew out of the former municipal armoury, i.e., from the holdings of the Salzburg armouries and the archbishop’s personal armoury of body armour and firearms. The weaponry collection reached its heyday during the historicising museum presentation under Director Jost Schiffmann at the end of the nineteenth century. The so-called ‘Weapons Hall’ remained in place until its partial relocation due to the war in 1944. After the reconstruction of the museum in the 1960s, the collection was displayed separately in rooms of the associated Fortress Museum at Hohensalzburg Fortress.

The remains of the former Salzburg defensive arsenals include numerous late medieval and early modern pole weapons, such as halberds and pikes, small remnants of cuirasses and helmets, also swords and wheel-lock carbines of Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau’s bodyguard. From the Baroque era and the nineteenth century there are numerous cavalry swords, pole weapons of the Archbishops’ guard, sabres and swords, some artillery weapons, as well as pistols and rifles, several made by long-established Salzburg manufacturers such as Klett, Neureiter, and Zellner, among others. In the section on uniforms, there is a great deal of equipment belonging to the Salzburg citizens’ militia and the National Guard of 1848, as well as several uniforms of the Habsburg Army, such as those of the Rainer Regiment No. 59.

The Fortress Museum, which was redesigned in 2019, displays selected objects from the medieval to baroque collections. Highlights include armour, such as a fragment of a fluted armour from the sixteenth century, a replica of the gilded ceremonial armour of Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau from the nineteenth century, and, as a particularly rare piece, a leather chanfron from the fifteenth century. In addition, there is a cross-section of firearms of various calibres, from wheel-lock carbines and wall guns to cannons, and other representative examples of cutting, stabbing, and striking weapons.