One of Vienna’s most visible pieces of outdoor sculpture is also one of the hardest to take in—it’s a sprawling pile allegory, angels and even a Habsburg emperor, standing in a major shopping zone and just about too much to take in at one view.
The Pestsäule, or Plague Column, was built in the 1680s as a thank-you for the end of an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1679—an interim wooden version put up during the plague seems not to have stopped the plague. Emperor Leopold I, who had it built, waited out the epidemic in Prague and then returned to sponsor this version.
Because good things come in threes, and because the column was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, the gilded upper portion depicts the Trinity and a number of saints. Below them, a swarm of angels in a mass that seems almost in motion.
Below that, the third section—threes, remember—depicts humans, including Leopold.

Interesting! I have seen it many times, but knew nothing about its history. Thanks.