About the Museum

Peter Anich: terrestrial globe, 1758

Vincenzo Coronelli: terrestrial and celestial globe, 1693

The Globe Museum of the Austrian National Library in Palais Mollard is the world’s only institution in which terrestrial and celestial globes and globes of earth’s moon and various planets, as well as instruments linked with globes (armillary spheres) and instruments in which globes are an integral part (planetaria, telluria, lunaria) are acquired, researched, and presented to the public.

The Museum is divided into an exhibition area, in which a most comprehensive collection of globes and globe related instruments is set up and accessible to the public, and a store section and a study area.

In the permanent displays the globes are presented to the visitors as specific cartographic expressions, but also as valuable aesthetic objects of high artistic quality and craftsmanship. Particular aspects of the study of globes are emphasised: the history of globes, their production, the spectrum of topics presented on globes, but also questions relevant to the history of culture, such as the use of globes and their reception. Examples make it easy to follow the development of geographic and cosmographic concepts and knowledge in the past centuries. The Museum shows not only three-dimensional objects: digital presentations offer a gripping connection between the old treasures that may not be touched and modern means of communication.

In the “Collectors’ Gallery” objects on permanent loan from important private Viennese collections are on display – among them the oldest globe extant in Austria, the terrestrial globe of Gemma Frisius (about 1536), a unique object from the collection of Rudolf Schmidt, Vienna.