Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History), Vienna

Vienna is a city in which museums have a strong presence, architecturally, culturally, historically and in many other ways. There is perhaps no area or focus in the city for which a museum has not been erected. One of these museums, contributing to the city's fame in Europe and the world at large, is the Museum of Art History or Kunsthistorisches Museum, a museum that has one of the richest collections of sculpture and painting in Europe.

Located on the south side of Maria-Theresien-Platz, in one of the wings of the Hofburg Palace complex, the Kunsthistorisches Museum has been erected to become a home and repository for the rich art collection of the Habsburg dynasty, assembled over the centuries - magnificent works by renowned Renaissance artists, exotic pieces and works by artisans from around the world. The museum is housed in a lavish building crowned by a quadrangular dome at the top and was one of the world's first museums of fine and decorative art. The museum building was designed by architects Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer, along with that of its mirror image, the Natural History Museum, which is located opposite. Its construction lasted 20 years and covered the period from 1871 to 1891.

Today, the rich collection of the Museum of the History of Art is scattered in about 100 rooms on all three floors of the building. One day is not enough to be able to tour this colourful world of exhibits, each more impressive than the last. The organization of the museum is as follows: the rooms on the ground floor are divided into three sections, which are devoted to Greek and Roman art, Egyptian heritage, Middle Eastern art and a collection of sculptures and decorative art. The Egyptian and Near Eastern exhibits date from around the 19th century, among which the burial chamber of a senior official of the pharaoh, transported from Egypt in its entirety dating from 4,000 years ago, stands out, as does the huge votive statue of ancient Cyprus and a host of dazzling statues collected by experts from the Habsburg dynasty.

The second and third floors of the Museum of Art History are devoted to works and exhibits from Europe, among which the masterpieces of Rembrandt van Rijn, Diego Velázquez, Albrecht Durer and Peter Paul Rubens stand out. Some of the most famous paintings in the lavish collection of the Museum of Art History are Mantegna's St. Sebastian, Titian's Ecce homo, Velázquez's portraits of the Infanta Marguerite Teresa, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Tower of Babel, St. The Virgin" by Rubens, as well as many masterpieces by Michelangelo, Tintoretto, Giorgione, Raphael, Albrecht Durer, Jan van Eyck and others.

Due to the fact that the northern lands of modern Italy were part of Austria for a long time, paintings from Italy were brought to Vienna, and Italian artists (architects, gardeners, composers, musicians, actors) worked in various cities of the Austrian Empire. Thus, over the years, considerable art collections from Italy have been assembled in Vienna, of which the jewellery of Benvenuto Cellini, which is not preserved in Italy or France, survives today.

The Museum of the History of Art also devotes space to Mannerism, the period designated in history as a transitional stage between the art of the Renaissance and the Baroque, which for a time coexisted with both stylistic movements. Critics link the emergence of Mannerism to disillusionment with Renaissance ideas. The Viennese royal court, however, welcomed representatives of the new artistic movement, and the Austrian court quickly became one of the most powerful centers of Mannerism in Western Europe. At the end of the 16th century. Famous Mannerist artists included Giuseppe Archimboldo, Adrian de Vries, Hans von Aachen, and Bartolomeus Sprenger, whose works formed a substantial collection in keeping with the artistic style.