The Lobkowicz Library is the oldest, largest, and finest private library in Central Europe.

A monument to the care of generations and their passion for books, the library contains about 65,000 volumes in French, German, Latin, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Greek, and Hebrew, including about 680 manuscripts and over 700 incunabula. Among its many treasures is a magnificent 9th-century Gospel Book, a 15th-century edition of The Apocalypse illustrated with exquisite Albrecht Dürer woodcuts, and an extremely rare vellum copy of the 48-line Bible printed in 1462 by Fust and Schoeffer in Mainz. Subjects range from history, geography, medicine, and the natural sciences, to architecture, literature, theology, and law.

The origins of the library date to the 15th century and grew through sophisticated and systematic acquisitions, not only of individual volumes, but also entire libraries of those of both immediate and distant relations. This included regular purchases and commissions, as well as collecting the books of important figures in the political, scientific, and cultural spheres. Succeeding generations continued to enrich the library, imprinting them with the nuances of different tastes and times. From the 17th century, the library was housed at the Lobkowicz family’s main seat of Roudnice Castle, where it remained until 1942 after it was confiscated by the Nazis. Original bookcases were destroyed, and a great part of the desecrated library spaces turned into communal bathroom facilities for the Nazi training school that occupied the castle. The books passed to the administrative care of the University (today National) Library of Prague. After the Communist takeover in 1948, the library remained in a state depository and suffered multiple displacements. In the early 1990s, the library was returned to the Lobkowicz family, reassembled, and today housed at Nelahozeves Castle.

The Lobkowicz Archives is made up of over 30,000 boxes and folios. It contains a treasure trove of documents and photographic materials detailing social history, politics, science, and the arts. First-hand accounts through letters, personal diaries, receipts, and ledgers, bring to life the culture and conversations of the times, documenting the family’s connection with some of the most influential figures in history—from political rulers like Rudolf II, Louis XIV, and Maria Theresa, to musical luminaries like Beethoven, Salieri, and even Luigi Bassi—Mozart’s first Don Giovanni.

The remarkable survival story of the Library & Archives exemplifies the ancestral motto which accompanied the gilded supralibros, or cover design, of the Spanish volumes belonging to Maria Manrique de Lara y Mendoza (1538–1608), the mother of Princess Polyxena Lobkowicz, née Pernstein (1566–1642): Inconcussa manet (“It withstands the storm”).

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Conservation & Restoration

Lobkowicz Music Archive

Education