In 1648 the devastating Thirty Years War was ended by the Peace of Westphalia. Though this left some Catholic areas in essentially Lutheran north and central Germany (and southern Protestant areas too, like Nuremberg and Württemberg, including Stuttgart) it was in the south that the Catholic heartlands lay. From Baden in the south-west, they ran through parts of Swabia (including the publishing centre of Augsburg) and Bavaria (Munich pre-eminent) with the large bishoprics of Passau and Salzburg leading to the expanses of the Austrian Empire in which Vienna and Prague were the major centres. These areas had always looked south of the Alps for trade and culture. After the War, with the revival of Catholic Counter-Reformation confidence, Italian baroque art-forms were eagerly adopted, while the desire of many German princelings for monarchical splendour, in the style of Louis XIV, made their courts increasingly receptive to French taste also. The raising of the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 and ensuing victories reinforced both the prestige of the imperial Viennese court and the mood of religious triumph in Austria and her supporting German principalities. This was reflected in the many powerful monasteries, such as Melk, Weingarten and Ottobeuren, rebuilt in the first half of the eighteenth century in a dazzling conjunction of princely and celestial glory – artistically, the climax of a process of original re-interpretation of forms invented in Italy and France (the organ at Melk is shown in Figure 14.1).