Melk Abbey
Baroque Benedictine abbey on a rock above the Danube, with a famous library and abbey church.
A Benedictine community has lived on the Melk rock since 1089, when Margrave Leopold II handed his castle above the Danube to monks from Lambach. The buildings seen today were begun in 1702 under Abbot Berthold Dietmayr to designs by Jakob Prandtauer and completed after his death by his relative Joseph Munggenast, with the church consecrated in 1736. The long ochre ranges run some 320 metres along the ridge and close at the west in a church with twin towers and a dome.
The visitor route leads through the Imperial Staircase, the 196-metre Imperial Corridor hung with portraits of Austrian rulers, the abbey museum, the Marble Hall and the library, whose ceiling fresco by Paul Troger of 1731 looks up into an allegory of faith. A terrace links the hall and library to the church, and the Northern Bastion holds changing exhibitions. The abbey and the surrounding Wachau valley are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Highlights
- Abbey church of 1736 with twin towers and a high dome
- Library with ceiling fresco by Paul Troger, 1731
- Marble Hall and the 196-metre Imperial Corridor
- Terrace and baroque park above the Danube
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