City Walk: Floods, Fires and Plagues. A journey into the environmental history of medieval & early modern Vienna

Like all pre-modern urban centres, Vienna was affected by various natural calamities, from the Late Antique Little Ice Age to the Late Medieval Little Ice Age, from the First Plague Pandemic (the “Justinianic Plague”) to the Second one of the “Black Death”. Recurring floods of the Danube and other rivers modified the urban landscape in often dramatic ways, while storms, fires and even earthquakes destroyed lives and buildings. Based on the newest findings of archaeology and environmental history, the tour explores the ecological dynamics of Vienna from Roman times to the early 19th century.