The oldest remaining monastery in Styria, Admont Abbey contains the largest monastic library in the world[2][3] as well as a long-established scientific collection.

[1] In the 17th and 18th centuries, the abbey reached a high point of artistic productivity, with the works of the world-famous ecclesiastical embroiderer Brother Benno Haan (1631–1720) and the sculptor Josef Stammel.

[4] The economic crises of the 1930s forced the abbey to sell off many of its art treasures, and during the period of the National Socialist government the monastery was dissolved and the monks evicted.

The picture on the altar of Mary, Maria Immaculata by Martino Altomonte (1657–1745), is surrounded by 15 carved medallions of the secrets of the rosary by Stammel.

The abbey is responsible for 27 parishes, runs a secondary school with about 600 pupils and a senior citizen's home in Frauenberg.

The ceiling consists of seven cupolas, decorated with frescoes by Bartolomeo Altomonte showing the stages of human knowledge up to the high point of Divine Revelation.

The architecture and design express the ideals of the Enlightenment, against which the sculptures by Joseph Stammel of "The Four Last Things" make a striking contrast.

Since the Baroque period the abbots had accumulated a collection of "curiosities" and scientific specimens of various sorts, which were entirely destroyed in the fire of 1865.

[5] As part of the reconstruction, Father Gabriel Strobl determined to replace the lost collections, and so formed the nucleus of the modern museums.

The Natural History museum now contains over 250,000 insect specimens, including one of the three largest collections of flies, or Diptera, in Europe.