The largest monastic library now opened for visiting at night / Православие.Ru

Vienna, July 11, 2013

The largest Monastery library in the world which is situated in the Austrian Admont Abbey is inviting people to attend a series of events named "A night in the library". The organizers are offering eight meetings in July and August and the participants of the meetings will be able to familiarize themselves with the library's history and its richest collection, reports Sedmitza.ru.

The Abbey possesses a collection of books consisting of about 200,000 volumes; 70,000 of them are kept in the library hall. The most valuable of them are 1400 medieval manuscripts, 530 incunabula, including those released before 1500.

The collection of the so-called "universal library", along with a huge amount of theological and historiographical literature, contains fundamental works on philosophy, jurisprudence and natural sciences.

The monastery library is a historical monument. The interior of the library hall was made in 1774 by architects Gotthard Heiberg and Joseph Huber in the late baroque style. The hall is one of the largest in the world; it is adorned with frescoes by the Austrian painter Bartolomeo Altomonte. The paintings depict the stages of human cognition, including both scientific and religious knowledge of the world.