Melk (Part 2)

Ironically, this ancient place is home to a wonderful, totally sensory-overload, modern museum which depicts both history and allegory. It consists of 11 rooms and is the life journey of the Benedictine order, and of the castle and its original royal tenants.  The museum starts with a room lit in a soft blue light.  The name of this room is Hore (Listen!) – listen to your heart. The second room, The House for God and Man, is lit with a soft green light and is graced with an ornate, intricately carved coffin. The bottom of the coffin is on hinges and can be swung up, depositing the body into the ground and allowing the coffin to be used again and again.  Hmmm.

The third through seventh rooms – The Ups and Downs of History, the Wood of Life, “. . now we are seeing a dim reflection in a mirror . . . , Heaven on Earth, and In the Name of Reason are full of rich papal robes and miters, chalises and charger plates, and censors, huge carved wooded crucifixes, and papal jewelry. And of course various relics – fingers and the such.  Not my favourite rooms.  Remember that vow of poverty???

I did love the eighth room – The Whole Person. Here , in 11 steps the nearly complete image of a human body appears gradually on the walls of the room. The 12^th step, which is man in his entirely, is the visitor himself. I think the sculpture is made of papier mache but my memory may not be serving me well in that regard.

The ninth through eleventh rooms – The Path to the Future, To Glorify God in Everything, The City on the Mountain, and Motion is a Sign of Life display various video installations, models of architectural buildings, and more gold and gilt and panels and frescoes.

We were rather fast-tracked through the Museum, so though I got a lot of the history, I didn’t get a lot of opportunity to muse over the allegory. Nonetheless, it is an impressive museum. From the museum we climbed the marble stairs to the outdoor balconies, and then entered a nondescript door to the Library.