Tuesday, June 4, 2013

The Austrian National Library

The first excursion of the cruise took us to the National Library. There are over 7.4 million items in the vast collection. We didn't read them all.

The Austrian National Library is the legal successor to the Imperial Royal Court Library of the Austrian Empire. The beginnings of the former court library go back to the second half of the 14th century when the Habsburgs began to collect manuscripts or to commission them. The splendid baroque library constructed between 1723 and 1726 at Josefsplatz housed all the court library's manuscripts, incunabula, autographs, printed books, maps, globes and copper engravings until the late 19th century.

 


 
The book shelves are stocked in the Christmas tree configuration with the tallest on the bottom and the smallest on the top.
 
The ceiling is a beautiful fresco

Love this globe.

 
 
This represents the building of the library as it is being presented to the city of Vienna, the lady in green with the cross on her chest.

 

This is the first time I have used my zoom lens in such a low light situation. I think it did a great job

 

One of our new friends, Kathy Cook, who was a Librarian so I had to get a photo of her in the library.

 

 

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1 comment:

  1. Joe GJune 8, 2013 at 5:28 AM

    Now that's a library! I'm thinking this almost puts the Library of Congress to shame. Those are some great detail shots of the fresco Mom. This kind of reminds me of the library from the Disney animated classic Beauty and the Beast.

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