State Hall of the Austrian National Library, the Baroque Library Charles VI Built Into the Hofburg
Plenty of palaces have a library. The Hofburg has a library hall nearly 80 metres long, all shelving, galleries and painted ceiling, built so an emperor could show Europe that Vienna was a capital of learning as well as of armies.
The Prunksaal, or State Hall, sits on Josefsplatz, the square with the bronze horseman of Joseph II in a Roman toga. Charles VI ordered it for his Court Library. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach designed it, and after his death in 1723 his son Joseph Emanuel built it, by 1726. It's the middle of the Austrian National Library today, which holds more than 12 million objects in all and traces its collection back to 1368.
Inside are about 200,000 books printed between 1501 and 1850. You can't take them down. You come to look at the room.
Photo: Virtual Travel Guide
What to look at
The hall is 77.7 metres long, 14.2 metres wide and almost 20 metres high, rising to about 29 metres under the dome in the middle.
Photo: Virtual Travel Guide
The ceiling. Daniel Gran painted the frescoes, finished by 1730. The dome shows the apotheosis of Charles VI. One side of the hall is given to war, the other to peace. Under Maria Theresa the dome cracked; Nikolaus Pacassi shored it up and Franz Anton Maulbertsch restored the painting in 1769.
Photo: Virtual Travel Guide
The emperor. Under the dome stands a larger-than-life marble statue of Charles VI as Hercules, protector of the Muses, dated 1735 and attributed to Antonio Corradini. Around him are marble Habsburgs by the Strudel brothers, Peter, Paul and Dominik.
Photo: Virtual Travel Guide
Prince Eugene's books. The shelves in the central oval hold the library of Prince Eugene of Savoy, about 15,000 volumes, bought for the Court Library after his death. The same Eugene rides a bronze horse on Heldenplatz, five minutes away.
The globes. Four Baroque globes by the Venetian cartographer Vincenzo Coronelli, each more than a metre across.
Photo: Virtual Travel Guide
The hall was conserved in the second half of 2022, so the gilding and the frescoes are in good shape.
Tickets and hours, as of October 2026
- Adults €12, reduced €10 (students under 27 and others), pensioners €10.50
- Under 19 free
- Audio guide €3, in eight languages
- From October to May: closed Monday; Tuesday to Sunday 9:00 to 18:00, Thursday to 21:00
- From June to September: open daily, 9:00 to 18:00, Thursday to 21:00
The hall closes early on some days for events. In the coming weeks: 30 October from 15:00, and 19 November from 14:00. On 18 November it opens at 12:00. Check the library's site before you go.
If you have a few days, the week ticket for €21 adds one entry each to the library's smaller museums, the Papyrus Museum in the Neue Burg, the Globe and Esperanto Museums in Palais Mollard and the Literature Museum in the Grillparzerhaus, plus the Haus der Geschichte Österreich. Under-19s get into all of them free.
When to go
Thursday evenings, when the hall stays open to 21:00, are a good way to miss the daytime tour groups. In summer it opens every day and fills up from late morning.
The State Hall also hosts temporary exhibitions. From 19 November 2026 the theme is the court of Emperor Francis II/I.
The way in is from Josefsplatz, past the statue of Joseph II.
Photo: Virtual Travel Guide
It's a short walk from the Spanish Riding School, whose Winter Riding School was built by the same father and son a few years later, and from the Augustinian Church on the other side of the square.