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Belveders Palaces/Austrian Galleries
Webtipps The Vienna sightseeings: Saint Peter's Church
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Vienna’s Belvedere Palace has a fine prospect of the old city from a beautiful garden. Belvedere means a place from which to see beauty. Though his parents were born in Italy, Prince Eugene was a Frenchman and well-aquainted with Versailles. Spurned by Louis XIV, he became a military commander of the Habsburg Empire, and then the most grandiouse and influential private patron in Europe. | |||||||||
| Eugene was a close friend and comrade of the Duke of Marlborough. They defeated Louis XIV’s armies and rewarded with two palaces . Duke Eugene had bought land outside the medieval town after driving back the Turks’ last assault on Vienna. All Europe rejoiced in its safety from the infidels. Vienna developed a gay cosmopolitan society. The Belvedere has a grand Upper Palace (built 1720-22) and a more comfortable Lower Palace (built 1714-16), where Prince Eugene lived. |  |
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The Gardens link the palaces, with elegant pools, fountains, sculpture, steps and cascades. Immaculate clipped maple hedges bring the sky itself into the design. The theme is man’s journey from darkness to the divine light. After Prince Eugene’s death, in 1736, his estate passed to the Habsburgs and continued to be used for social gatherings of pomp and circumstances. | |||||||||
| Nowadays the Belvedere is the home of the Österreichische Galerie and a Barockmuseum. |
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