The story of this place
Founded in 1143 by the Premonstratensian order, Strahov Monastery crowns the hill above Prague and shelters one of Europe's most beautiful historic libraries. Its two great halls — the Theological Hall of 1679 with barrel-vaulted stucco, and the taller Philosophical Hall of the 1780s crowned by a soaring fresco of the 'Spiritual Development of Mankind' — together hold some 200,000 volumes, including 3,000 manuscripts. A cabinet of curiosities lines the connecting corridor with dried sea creatures, whale baleen and a narwhal tusk once sold as a unicorn horn. When Joseph II dissolved monasteries, the abbot saved Strahov by declaring it a scholarly institute, and monks still brew beer at its gate.