| What is known today as the Mozartplatz Square in the heart of the old town of Salzburg just next to the Neue Residenz, was opened Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau ordered to destruct a number of houses on this site in the early 17th century.
The central piece on interest is the Mozart memorial by Ludwig Schwanthaler. It was opened in 1842, a difficult time for Salzburg then secularised only two decades earlier and still suffering from the devastations of the Napoleonic wars. The two sons of Mozart were present at the opening of the memorial, Mozart′s widow Constanze von Nissen had died half a year earlier in May 1842 in a house on the Mozartplatz.
There were some arguments on which square to name after Mozart - the "Hannibalplatz" in front of the Dreifaltigkeitskirche (Trinity Church, today "Markartplatz"), or the current Mozartplatz, then known as "Michaelsplatz".
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