‘God’s Fortress’ soars majestically upon a plateau above the city of Melk, on the Danube. The Benedictine monastery is an imposing monastery-palace of the Christian occident, even today a masterpiece of European Baroque and also a bulwark of faith that is run according to the rules of the Benedictine Order.

When the power of the Margraves expanded and they moved east, the Benedictine monks built a monastery on the site of a former castle. A symbol of power and jubilation was created by young abbot, Berthold Dietmayer. He planned the expansion of the monastery and engaged Jakob Prandtauer, who worked for the rest of his life on the monastery-palace. An Imperial Wing was arranged for the imperial court and its guests and for whom various rooms were always made available.

Museum rooms were also set up in the Imperial rooms in which are displayed old works of art, a Romanesque Cross, ancient documents of monastic life, religious works of art and ecclesiastical garments of various periods. The priceless exhibits are framed by both putti and angels which appear to float in Heaven.

The city of Melk is located at the foot of the huge monastery complex along with eighty seven listed buildings. The fate of the religious order was, and continues to be, inseparably linked with the city in which the boundaries between nature and architecture, rock and monastery construction, merge naturally together.

Stift Melk is a living monument of humanity.