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Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada
My virtue is that I say what I think, my vice that what I think doesn't amount to much.

Friday, August 22, 2008

World's largest monastery library restored to its baroque splendour


The world's largest monastery library, in the quaint Austrian town of Admont, has re-opened after four years of restoration work that has returned all its rococo splendour to this baroque jewel.

The ornate library is the size of a cathedral: 13 metres high, 14 metres wide and 70 metres long.

In the ceiling, seven majestic domes boast wonderful frescoes by Bartolomeo Altomonte that seem more three-dimensional than flat.

Below, niches filled with ancient books cover the immaculate white walls around a chequer-patterned marble floor, decorated with Josef Stammel's sculptures of "The four last things" -- death, last judgment, heaven and hell.



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