This is the Rococo interior of KLOSTER WIBLINGEN LIBRARY. Completed in 1744 it was built in the North wing of an 11th century Benedictine abbey in Upper Swabia, Baden-Württemberg.
The first libraries were archives of the earliest form of writing, clay tablets, and evolved over the centuries with the 17th and 18th centuries known as a «Golden Age of Libraries». They had become increasingly public, although not uniformly open to the general population, and while books were often chained to desks the number of lending libraries was also increasing.
An ornamental winding gallery supported by multiple columns, its statues and ceiling fresco, symbolized the architect’s vision that Kloster Wiblingen library was to be a place for preserving «treasures of wisdom and science», and the interior is now thought of as among the finest examples of Rococo architecture.
Wiblingen is part of the Upper Swabian baroque Route and the late-Baroque abbey church, which was elevated to the status of basilica minor by Pope John Paul II in 1993, and the library are open to the public. Other areas are now part of the University of Ulm.
Photographer Will Pryce
grenzenjetztueberwinden 