Paper short abstract:

Globes, frescos and mythological paintings in the library and exotic plants and animals in the abbey’s garden pavilion reflect the 18th century scholarly curiosity, the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment combined with the tradition of humanism and an abbot’s or monastery’s need for representation.

Paper long abstract:

Globes symbolizing the owners power, scholarliness, knowledge, wealth and as means of representation can be found in courtly libraries but also in monastic context. The frontispiece of the 1774 library catalogue of Melk Abbey depicts a globe by Vincenzo Coronelli. A pair of Coronelli globes, a celestial and a terrestrial globe, and painted globes at the ceiling fresco were part of the idea of the baroque universal library. Globes and their power to represent the world, guidebooks, botanical publications by Jacquin are found in the library but not only there. Scholarly curiosity combined with the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment were expressed by the exotic paintings in the garden pavilion by Johann Wenzel Bergl (1718-1789). Model for them were the famous Indes tapestries: exotic scenery full of wild plants and animals. These 1763/64 paintings illustrate the contemporary nostalgia for the Lost Paradise. A few years later Bergl painted the ceilings of two smaller library rooms, Apollo Musagetes and Aphrodite in a conch chariot accompanied by marine animals. Once the collection of minerals, conches, coins and medals was situated in the natural history library room and to some of the objects of the collection Bergl referred when he painted Aphrodite's surroundings.