Stallburg: A Renaissance Building and Imperial Stable in Vienna
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Austria
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page6 sections
History
Stallburg is a Renaissance building in Austria, located in central Vienna as part of the Hofburg, the former principal imperial palace complex and historic seat of the Habsburg court. Built around 1558–1565 for Archduke Maximilian, the future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, it later became a residence, an imperial gallery, and a stable associated with the Spanish Riding School.
Residence and imperial gallery
From 1659 to 1776, eleven rooms on Stallburg’s second floor housed the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, a Habsburg archduke and governor of the Spanish Netherlands. While serving in Brussels, Leopold Wilhelm assembled approximately 1,300–1,400 paintings. He later bequeathed the collection to his nephew Leopold I, a Habsburg ruler and Holy Roman Emperor, bringing it into imperial ownership.
The collection contained works associated with Hans Memling, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Altdorfer, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Lucas Cranach, Hans Holbein, Titian, Giorgione, Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, Tintoretto, and Jacopo da Ponte. David Teniers the Younger recorded Leopold Wilhelm’s earlier Brussels gallery in painted views and miniature reproductions that became models for engravers. His illustrated catalogue of Italian paintings, Theatrum Pictorium, appeared in 1660.
In the 1720s, Anton Joseph von Prenner produced another illustrated catalogue, incorporating additions from the Naples collection of Emperor Charles VI. Charles VI, a Habsburg ruler and Holy Roman Emperor, commissioned Ferdinand Storffer to oversee colored miniatures and engravings. The resulting Newly Arranged Inventory of the Imperial Paintings Gallery in the Stallburg was published in four volumes between 1720 and 1733. Charles VI also commissioned Francesco Solimena to commemorate the gallery’s rearrangement in a painting.
In 1778, the collection was transferred to the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. Much of it later entered the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna’s principal museum of art and historical collections, where it became an important part of the holdings from 1889. The stables temporarily housed a gallery of that museum.
Imperial stables and later use
Stallburg was later converted into imperial stables, with the horses housed on the ground floor. Its name refers to the horses of the imperial family. During the reign of Charles VI, the building also accommodated horses associated with the Spanish Riding School, Vienna’s historic institution for classical equestrian training.
Bombing heavily damaged Stallburg in 1945, shortly before the end of the Second World War. It was faithfully restored in 1947–1948, and a passage with arcades linking it to the Hofburg opened on July 1, 1948. The Renaissance arches in the inner courtyard were restored between 1955 and 1960, returning the building toward its earlier appearance after more than three centuries of alterations.
Stallburg continues to be used by the Spanish Riding School, whose Lipizzan horses are housed there. Lipizzaners are the horse breed traditionally associated with the institution, while its associated stud farm is located at Piber in Styria. The second floor is also described as accommodating the Austrian Parliament and the Austrian Society for Foreign Policy and the United Nations; a technical center and other offices occupy the first floor.
Remains
Building and courtyard
Stallburg survives as a three-storey Renaissance building arranged around an inner courtyard. Renaissance arcades run through the courtyard, including a restored arcade passage connecting the building with the Hofburg. Another arcade passage along Stallburggasse was opened to pedestrians in 1948. A fountain with wrought-iron railings, built in 1675, stands within the courtyard. The surviving fabric reflects the postwar restoration after the 1945 bombing, which aimed to reproduce the original form faithfully, while the courtyard arches were restored between 1955 and 1960.
Stables and gallery rooms
The ground floor retains its historic association with imperial stabling and continues to accommodate the Lipizzans of the Spanish Riding School. Above it, the former gallery occupied eleven rooms on the second floor between 1659 and 1776. These rooms formed the Stallburg Gallery, the setting for Leopold Wilhelm’s imperial art collection before its later transfer to other collections.
