Admont Abbey

The monastery was founded in 1074 by Archbishop of Salzburg . For centuries, the monastery was not only the religious center of Upper Styria, but also the center of art and science. In 1120, a convent was added to it with the charter of St. Benedict , which was abolished during the Reformation . The scriptorium founded in the 12th century left behind unique manuscripts. Abbot , who headed the monastery in 1297-1327, was a very versatile scholar.

The wars with Turkey and the Reformation period caused a long decline in the monastery. The abbey began to flourish again with the beginning of the Counter-Reformation . In the second half of the 16th century, the monastery was run by .

In the XVII-XVIII centuries, a number of famous artists and sculptors worked in the monastery, including and . Serious and partially irreplaceable consequences were exerted on the monastery by the fire of 1865, from which the library suffered and the organ built by destroyed. The restoration of the monastery began the following year and was completed only by 1890.

The Great Depression of the 1930s brought the monastery to the brink of bankruptcy when the abbey had to sell some of its artistic values. During the period of monastery was dissolved, and the monks were evicted. They were able to return to it only in 1946, after the end of World War II .

It is currently a thriving Benedictine community led by .

The Roman Catholic was designed and built by architect from Graz on the site of a church destroyed by a fire in 1865. On September 12, 1869, the church was solemnly consecrated under the direction of rector Zeno Müller. It was built in the neo - Gothic style on the model of the Regensburg Cathedral and became the first neo-Gothic religious building in Austria. Two towers 73 and 74 meters high adorn the church and are visible far from the Admont Valley.

, built in 1776, was once called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” and is the world's largest monastery library. Her project was designed by architect ; the frescoes on the ceiling are made by Bartolomeo Altomonte and sculptures by Joseph Stammel. It has a length of 70 meters, a width of 14 meters and a height of 13 meters. The book room holds about 70,000 volumes; the complete library fund is about 200,000 volumes. The Abbey’s library contains more than 1,400 valuable manuscripts, half of which are from the Middle Ages, the number of incunabula (printed before 1500) and prints of the period 1501-1520 is more than 930.

Since the Baroque period, the abbots have accumulated a large collection of rarities and scientific samples of various kinds, which were completely destroyed during the fire of 1865. Since 1866, , a priest and a scientist, a botanist and entomologist, took up the creation of a new museum collection. It is through his efforts that the Natural History Museum currently contains more than 250,000 specimens of insects ; minerals, rocks and exotic species have also been formed. The museum also has two collections of historical and contemporary art. The collection of historical art was started in 1959 by father Adalbert Krause and has expanded significantly since 1980. Since 1997, the abbey has been creating a collection of contemporary art, mainly presented by young Austrian artists. In 2005, the Admont Abbey Museum was awarded the Austrian Österreichische Museumspreis Prize , awarded by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.

• Bruno Hubl , Michael Braunsteiner . Admont. Ein Fotoporträt von Rudi Molacek. Admont 2003, ISBN 3-9501594-1-X .
• Adalbert Krause . Stift Admont. Kolorit, Wien 1974, ISBN 3-85142-001-2 .
• Gerald Unterberger . Universum im Kloster. Eine Führer durch das Stift, seine Bibliotheken & Museen. Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, Admont 2010, ISBN 978-3-900000-95-0 .

• Official website (German)
• Made for Admont: Im Auftrag des Abtes (German)
• Admont Monastery in Austria