St. Anne's Column, Victory column in Maria-Theresien-Straße, Austria
St. Anne's Column is a red Kramsach marble monument on Maria-Theresien-Straße in Innsbruck, rising 13 meters from the street. Its ornate pedestal carries four outward-facing statues of saints — Anne with a child, Cassian, Vigilius and George with a dragon and lance — while four small putti cling to the smooth shaft above. A capital with leaf ornament tops the column, which bears the Virgin as the Woman of the Apocalypse.
The column commemorates 26 July 1703, when the last Bavarian troops were driven from Tyrol during the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1704 the Tyrolean Landstände vowed a monument in gratitude; Cristoforo Benedetti of Trento carved it from red Kramsach marble, and Prince-Bishop Kaspar Ignaz Count of Künigl consecrated it on 26 July 1706.
The four base statues face the cardinal directions: Saint Anne to the north, Cassian to the west, Vigilius to the east and Saint George to the south. The column takes its name from Saint Anne's Day, 26 July, the date in 1703 when the last Bavarian troops left Tyrol.
The column stands in the middle of a pedestrian street in central Innsbruck, so it can be reached on foot without any difficulty from the old town or nearby areas. Visiting at different times of day is worth it, as the light changes how the red marble of the shaft appears.
The original Virgin Mary figure was replaced by a copy by Franz Roilo in 1958 and given on loan to the Abbey of St. Georgenberg-Fiecht, where it stands above the Mary altar in a side chapel of the abbey church near Schwaz. The four saint figures on the base were likewise substituted on 10 October 2009; their originals are kept on the first floor of the Altes Landhaus in Innsbruck.
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