Strahov Monastery Library

High on the hill behind Prague Castle, the Premonstratensian canons have kept their monastery at Strahov since 1143, when it was founded by Duke Vladislaus II and Bishop Jindřich Zdík after a first attempt three years earlier had failed. The abbey has lived through a great deal since — it was attacked in the Hussite wars in 1420, received the relics of St Norbert, the founder of the order, in 1627, and was seized by the communist regime in 1950 before returning to the canons after 1989. But what brings most people up the hill is its library, one of the most beautiful and best preserved in the world.

The collection runs to more than 200,000 volumes, including over 3,000 manuscripts, and it is housed in two halls built a century apart. The Theological Hall, completed in 1679, is a long gallery whose vaulted ceiling was painted by Siard Nosecký, with wooden bookcases running along its walls. The Philosophical Hall, built in the 1780s, is taller and grander: its shelves climb towards a ceiling covered by a sweeping fresco by Franz Anton Maulbertsch, a leading painter of the late Central European Baroque.

Seen together, the two rooms are whole compositions of wood, gilding and painted sky, and the contrast between them — the older one intimate and devotional, the later one lofty and learned — mirrors a century of changing taste. The rest of the monastery rewards a wander too, from the Basilica of the Assumption to the courtyards on the hilltop above the city.

Getting there

Strahov stands in the Hradčany district, about 1.7 km from Dejvice. Trams 22 and 23 run from the city centre (for example from Národní třída or Malostranská) up to the Pohořelec stop, a few minutes' walk from the monastery gate. Václav Havel Airport Prague (PRG) is about 9.4 km away.