Christine M. Boeckl, author of Images of Plague and Pestilence, calls it "one of the most ambitious and innovative sculptural ensembles created anywhere in Europe in the post-Bernini era.

[1] In spite of the long construction period, the frequent amendments of the design and the large number of sculptors involved, the monument appears quite homogeneous.

During the design period, it changed from a conservative memorial column to a High Baroque scene, narrating a story in a theatrical form.

The column has a complex iconography, the basic message of which is that the plague and the Ottomans' Second Siege of Vienna (1683), both of them punishments for sin, were averted or defeated by the piety and intercession of the Emperor Leopold I.

In the iconography, the Trinity expresses itself several times in the number three, namely vertically in three stages:[3] In addition, there is also a tripartite division in plan, which establishes a connection between the sacral program and the three parts of the Habsburg monarchy: Media related to Plague Column, Vienna at Wikimedia Commons