Altenburg Abbey

Altenburg was founded in 1144, wrecked repeatedly - by Hussites, by Swedes in the Thirty Years War - and rebuilt in the 1730s by Joseph Munggenast, with Paul Troger frescoing the church dome, the library and the marble hall. The library is the best of it, a long hall with the ceiling given over to an allegory of wisdom. Under the church is the crypt, decorated with a painted dance of death - skeletons in motion along the vaults - which is unusual to find in a Benedictine house and unsettling in the way it was meant to be. Excavations in the 1980s found the medieval abbey preserved beneath the baroque floors, so a whole earlier monastery can be walked through underneath. The gardens were laid out in the 1990s on the terraces.

History

Countess Hildeburg of Poigen-Rebgau founded the abbey in 1144, and digs by the Federal Monuments Office between 1983 and 2005 uncovered a 12th-century wall and a Romanesque cloister of the 13th century. It was attacked again and again, by Hermann V of Baden in 1251, by the Cumans between 1304 and 1327, in the Hussite Wars and by the Turks in 1552, and in 1645 the Swedes wrecked it; afterwards abbots Maurus Boxler and Placidus Much rebuilt it in Baroque form under the architect Josef Munggenast, with frescoes by Paul Troger, stucco by Franz Josef Holzinger and marbling by Johann Georg Hoppl, and although Emperor Joseph II forbade it to take novices in 1793, it survived (Wikipedia, Altenburg Abbey).

What to look for

• Troger's library ceiling - the allegory of wisdom over the long hall.
• A painted dance of death - skeletons along the crypt vaults under the church.
• The buried medieval abbey - earlier buildings found under the baroque floors.
• Terraced gardens - laid out in the 1990s below the abbey.

When to go

April to October; the abbey closes for much of winter. Half a day.

Practical notes

Winter opening is very limited. Parts are shown by guided tour only. The crypt is dim and the skeleton painting is faded in places. The Waldviertel location needs a car.

Nearby

Horn is close; Rosenburg castle and the Kamptal are south.

Key facts