Archduke John of Austria Mausoleum

One of the most beautiful neo-Gothic sacred buildings of the 19th century is enthroned in Scena village on the edge of the church hill: the mausoleum where Archduke John of Austria was buried with his family. The building was constructed by renowned artists from Innsbruck and Verona according to the plans of the Viennese architect Prof. Moritz Wappler and presents itself slender and upwardly striving. Red sandstone and granite from Mt. Ivigna, the local mountain, were used.

On June 24, 1869, the "Styrian Prince", Archduke John Baptist Josef Fabian Sebastian of Austria, important Habsburg and promoter and moderniser of industry, agriculture and railways, was laid to rest in Scena. He died already 10 years earlier of pneumonia and was buried in a mausoleum in Graz. One year after his death, his son, Franz Count of Merano, commissioned the construction of the mausoleum in Scena: It was built in the cemetery of the parish church as a chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist. Nine years later it was finished. Archduke John was transferred from Graz and now rests very close to Scena Castle, also visitable, which he acquired in 1844.

Inside the light and colourful building with its slender lancet windows, you can now see a neo-Gothic tabernacle altar and a window with the family's patron saints: Saints Francis, John the Baptist and Anna. In the underground crypt chapel with its heavy cross-ribbed vaults are the marble sarcophagus of Archduke John and his wife, Anna Countess of Merano. Next to it are two other tombs for Franz Count of Merano, the only child of the two, and his wife, Theresa Countess of Lamberg. And how to reach the Archduke John of Austria Mausoleum? It has a car park, and Scena can also be reached easily and quickly by bus (e.g. line 231 from Merano). From the hike on the Meadow Path near Scena you will have a beautiful view on the castle and the mausoleum.