Palais Porcia is a former urban residence in the western quarter of the

Innere Stadt The Innere Stadt (; ; "Inner City") is the 1st municipal Districts of Vienna, district of Vienna () located in the center of the Austrian capital. The Innere Stadt is the old town of Vienna. Until the city boundaries were expanded in 1850, the I ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. It stands at 23, Herrengasse between Palais Kinsky and Palais Trautmansdorff and across Palais Harrach. The palace was built in 1546 for the descendants of Count Gabriel von Salamanca-Ortenburg.Wehdorn et al., p. 56. It was representative of the simple

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

style that emerged in Vienna in the middle of the 16th century. In the 17th and later centuries it was extensively remodelled in

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

and

Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

styles but the inner court still contains an early Renaissance

arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated video, pinball, electro-mechanical, redemption, etc., game ** Arcade video game, a coin-operated video game ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade video game's hardware ** Arcad ...

. As of 2010, Palais Porcia houses the Administrative Library of the Austrian Federal Chancellery.
Administrative Bibliothek des Bundes (AB) (in German)
.'' Austrian State Chancellery. Retrieved 17-06-2010.

History

The first ''documented'' stone buildings on the site of present-day Palais Porcia emerged in the 15th century.
Palais Porcia(in German)
.'' Austrian State Chancellery. Retrieved 17-06-2010. The foundations are older, dating back to

Roman period The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

.
Weitere Amtsgebäude des Bundeskanzleramtes (in German)
.'' Austrian State Chancellery. Retrieved 17-06-2010. In 1528 the cluster of buildings south of Freyung was purchased by the royal treasurer (German: ''königliche Pfennigmeister'') Johann Löbl. In 1538 Löbl sold it to his successor, treasurer Count Gabriel von Salamanca-Ortenburg. The new owner commissioned the rebuilding of old medieval structures, using arcades to blend them into a single stately residence with then-fashionable Renaissance facade. The work was completed after the Count's death, in 1546. In 1592 the building passed to Hofkirchen and Losenstein families. In 1602 they began an extensive remodeling that added early

detail to the original facade. Inside, the building acquired an ornate

spiral staircase Stairs are a structure designed to bridge a large vertical direction, vertical distance between lower and higher levels by dividing it into smaller vertical distances. This is achieved as a diagonal series of horizontal platforms called steps wh ...

carved of "Royal limestone" (German: ''Kaiserstein'') from Kaisersteinbruch.Kaisersteibruch (Hungarian: ''Császárkőbánya'') is part of present-day Großgemeinde Bruckneudorf (Hungarian: ''Királyhida''). In 1627 the Palais passed to Count Wratislav zu Fürstenberg, in 1643 to

Jörger von Tollet The Jörger von Tollet (also: Jörger, Jörger zu Tollet) family is an old and influential Austrian noble family from Upper Austria that first appeared in the 13th century. Members of the family held the title of Imperial Count.https://genealo ...

family, in 1660 to Count Johann Karl von Porcia. The building survived the fire of 1683 that destroyed the buildings of the nearby Freyung and is still named after the Porcias although the family disposed with the building in the 1720s. It became the property of statesman Bartholomäus von Tinti, who also owned the Schallaburg castle. In the 1750s it was purchased by the Court of

Maria Theresa of Austria Maria Theresa (Maria Theresia Walburga Amalia Christina; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was the ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position in her own right. She was the sovereig ...

and remains a state property to date (2010). In 1883 the interiors were completely rebuilt, and the Palais became a

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a structure which houses judicial functions for a governmental entity such as a state, region, province, county, prefecture, regency, or similar governmental unit. A courthouse is home to one or more courtrooms, ...

Library

The Administrative Library of the Ministry of Interior, predecessor of the present-day library, was founded in 1849. It was based in the Ministry offices on Wipplingerstrasse. In 1897 the library moved into its own building on Marc-Aurel-Strasse, one year later it relocated to Hohen Markt.
Gestern und heute – Die Behördenbibliothek des Bundes (in German)
.'' Austrian State Chancellery. Retrieved 17-06-2010. In 1925 the library relocated into recently remodelled Palais Porcia. Since the establishment of the

First Austrian Republic The First Austrian Republic (), officially the Republic of Austria, was created after the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 10 September 1919—the settlement after the end of World War I which ended the Habsburg rump state of ...

the library remains a branch of the Federal Chancellery. The library stocks a reference collection of Austrian laws and regulations and houses the

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

center of the Chancellery. Since 2000, the library gradually took over and digitized the collections of the Federal Government ministries. In 2006 it became Austria's principal uplink gateway to

SourceOECD {{Short description, Former online library of the OECD SourceOECD was the online library of the OECD from 2001 to 2010. In July 2010 it was replaced by OECD iLibrary. OECD publications The OECD publishes roughly 250 books a year, on subjects as d ...

(''Austrian OECD depositary''). As of 2010, the library loans books only to government employees. The reading hall is open free of charge to all visitors (photo ID required to enter).

Notes

References

* Czeike, Felix and Czeike, Helga (1999, in German).
Wien: Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte der Donaumetropole
'. DuMont Reiseverlag. . * Wehdorn et al. (2004).
Vienna, a guide to the UNESCO world heritage sites
'. Birkhäuser. . {{Authority control Porcia Libraries in Vienna Government buildings in Austria Renaissance architecture in Austria Houses completed in 1546 Buildings and structures in Innere Stadt 1546 establishments in the Habsburg monarchy 16th-century establishments in Austria Establishments in the Archduchy of Austria