Belvedere Palace

The Belvedere Palace complex was built by architect Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt upon the order of a great commander, generalissimo of the imperial army, and moreover the connoisseur of art - Prince Eugene of Savoy.

The Belvedere Palace complex built in baroque style consists of the Upper Belvedere (1716) and the Lower Belvedere (1722) separated by a symmetrical formal park.

The Upper Belvedere Palace was used for receptions by the Prince Eugene of Savoy. Negotiations and important meetings were held there. After Eugene's death the palace was purchased by the Habsburgs. In 1955 in the Upper Belvedere Palace was signed the declaration of independence of Austria.

Nowadays in the Upper Belvedere Palace there is the Imperial Picture Gallery which includes collections of Austrian and German art of the XIX-XX centuries and impressionists' pictures.

The Lower Belvedere Palace was the residential house of the Prince Eugene of Savoy. But it also had magnificent halls - Marble, Mirror, Grotesque, the grand bedroom and the study, the stable and the greenhouse. All these rooms are now used by the museum of baroque and medieval art, and sometimes by thematic exhibitions.