Always Ahead of Their Time
Franz Tappeiner, born in Laas in 1816, trained as a physician in Padua, Prague and Vienna, was a man with an immense passion for all things green and blooming. He had been practising medicine in Merano since 1846. It was he who introduced the “terrain cure” invented by Professor Oertel of Munich — a therapy based on the idea of walking one’s way back to health. To allow patients with lung conditions to benefit from the fresh air, he had deckchairs placed in the covered promenade.
His Jewish colleague Raphael Haussmann, meanwhile, developed the grape cure further — a regimen recommending generous consumption of Vernatsch grapes, believed to help against a variety of ailments. He published his first findings in 1884 under the title The Grape Cure: with Reference to Experiences in Merano. One of his predecessors was Johann Nepomuk Huber, personal physician to Mathilde von Schwarzenberg, who stayed in Merano with the princess in 1836 and later published a work extolling the virtues of the city’s grapes, whey, milk and mineral springs.
But the story does not end with the cures alone. The enthusiastic botanist Tappeiner, deeply concerned for his patients’ wellbeing, financed Merano’s famous high-level promenade. The first section of the Tappeiner Walk opened in 1893; the spa promenade had already been established in 1817, followed by the Summer Promenade with its welcome shade in 1866, and from 1880 the ambitious construction of the Gilf Promenade began.
Tappeiner’s vision went even further: in 1889, the Art Nouveau covered promenade — the Wandelhalle — was built according to his plans, providing a venue for concerts and cultural events. As Merano rose to prominence as a spa town, its elegance and its distinguished international guests attracted poets and writers, musicians and artists alike. The city’s unique atmosphere flourished — both curative and restorative on one side, cosmopolitan and delightfully sophisticated on the other. Things could hardly have been better for Merano.