Special report

It is one of the greatest and most beautiful libraries in the world, characterized and famous for being the most important documentation center in Europe and the richest library in Austria with its contents, and thanks to these wonderful features it has turned into a center that attracts many tourists and visitors from inside and outside Austria. We are talking about the Austrian National Library, which was founded in the Middle Ages based on an order from Emperor Charles VI (1685-1740) of the House of Habsburg. It was called the Court Library until 1920 AD.

Description of the Library

The library is located in the Hofburg Palace, and it is one of the oldest libraries in Vienna founded in the fifteenth century as an attempt by them to educate the Austrian people and consolidate their culture and traditions out of a desire to control the world. The Court Library was built to be the first great public library in that part of the world, and it is a masterpiece of Austrian Baroque architecture. The grand hall is about (255) feet wide, (47) feet long, and (64) feet high. In the middle, the library nave extends in an oval shape with an area of (95) feet and a height of (29) meters, topped by a dome measuring (96) by (59) feet. At both entrances, there are two heavy marble columns supporting the dome. Visually, the building is divided into two wings, one known as the Peace Wing and the other as the War Wing. This great building wins the admiration of visitors before they move to the book shelves and rare contents.

The National Library in Vienna is distinguished by its unique architectural character, which reflects the Baroque art that was prevailing in the Middle Ages. We find it from the outside and inside with many aesthetic details that made it unique. Inside the library, engravings and wall drawings prevail over the entire library, and the rest of its walls turned into library shelves containing books rising to its top surface. We also find its surface and exactly its dome contains drawings discussing the reign of King Louis.

The exquisite magnificence of the library takes the breath away time after time. Before your hands reach the contents of the library, its components dazzle you when you cross a lobby leading to a wide hall that was basically dedicated to horsemanship lessons. From there one reaches a huge staircase decorated with old engravings from the heritage of the southern provinces of the empire leading to the Grand Hall (Ceremonial Hall). The Labrouste Hall in the National Library in Paris at Rue de Richelieu may be larger than this, and the complete circular hall in the National Museum is more dazzling, but the Grand Hall with the wonderful Baroque decorations in the National Library of Austria is still more dazzling than all library halls in Europe.

Rare Books, Documents and Manuscripts

The library was renamed the "Austrian National Library" in 1918. With the number of books reaching 7.5 million books and documents including (7,866) of the books printed in the first stages of the art of printing before 1500 AD, and (65,821), manuscripts, the Court Library thus became a huge institution exceeding the Hofburg Palace, to occupy the larger part of the New Palace and the Augustinian Monastery, and extends to the Albertina Museum. In 1992, a new structure for the library was designed allowing the addition of 4 million volumes.

The contents of the library were collected from all over the world and they are books talking about Austria in all its economic, historical, social and cultural aspects. We also find many documents that were collected so that it has hundreds of new manuscripts since the fourth century until today, in addition to many that were not indexed, and the German orientalist performed modern advertising documentation. We also find many maps that were collected since the seventeenth century and may have no parallel in the world, and also all Austrian university research and references. 

The Austrian National Library is not just a library but was a palace for several kings and for this reason the visitor can wander inside the library and enjoy the beauty of design and engravings and watch its most prominent holdings and artistic masterpieces found. Reading lovers will find millions of books that were written long decades a and were classified as among the most valuable and rarest manuscripts and books in all fields.

Arabic Manuscripts

The Austrian library continued to keep hundreds of Arabic, Turkish and Persian manuscripts, and remained obscure until the beginning of the nineteenth century; where the German orientalist (Gustav Flügel) indexed the contents of this library, and published his index in Vienna in the year (1865 AD) in three volumes. The library continued to collect fragments of heritage until it gathered hundreds of new manuscripts that were not indexed, and the German orientalist (Helene Loebenstein) indexed what was not found in (Flügel's) index so her index came in a volume containing more than (500) manuscripts, and was published in Vienna. The indexes of the Austrian National Library are considered rare indexes; as more than (140) years have passed since (Flügel's) indexes, and likewise more than thirty years have passed since the publication of (Helene's) indexes, and they did not spread in the Arab countries, until the researcher Muhammad Ayesh Musa undertook the task of arabizing this index; to be a starting point for the Arab editor in publishing the treasures of this library of which only a little has been published.

References

Wikipedia

Official website of the library

Saqifat al-Safa Scientific Foundation, Jeddah

Torna tourist site

Dar al-Minhaj for Publishing and Distribution