Capistran Chancel
From this pulpit in 1456, Saint John Capistrano and Hungarian general János Hunyadi preached a crusade to repel Ottoman invaders of Europe. As we all know, the Ottoman Empire had taken Constantinople in 1453 and was still expanding, with its eye on central Europe, and Christian Europe was overall very much not happy about that.
It used the cathedral’s main pulpit, and was moved to the outside NE corner at some later point. The extravagant Baroque statue of St Francis trampling an Ottoman soldier under a Crusader’s banner and brilliant sunburst dates to the 18th century.
