State Hall of the Austrian National Library
Europe's largest Baroque library houses over 200,000 historic books on its richly decorated wooden shelves. The State Hall is rightly one of the most beautiful library rooms in the world.The Austrian National Library is just one of the visitor attractions in Vienna's Imperial Palace. In the former court library, however, the books are only the supporting cast: The impressive State Hall is almost 80 meters long and 30 meters high, and is crowned at its center by a mighty dome. The riotously colorful fresco by court painter Daniel Gran shows the "becoming a god" of Emperor Charles VI, who commissioned the construction of the library in 1723. This also stands hewn in marble in the center of the central oval – directly beneath the dome. The other 16 statues show rulers and nobility of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg family.