1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Klosterneuburg

26591791911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 15 — Klosterneuburg

KLOSTERNEUBURG, a town of Austria, in Lower Austria, 51/2 m. N.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900), 11,595. It is situated on the right bank of the Danube, at the foot of the Kahlenberg, and is divided by a small stream into an upper and a lower town. As an important pioneer station Klosterneuburg has various military buildings and stores, and among the schools it possesses an academy of wine and fruit cultivation.

On a hill rising directly from the banks of the Danube stand the magnificent buildings (erected 1730–1834) of the Augustine canonry, founded in 1106 by Margrave Leopold the Holy. This foundation is the oldest and richest of the kind in Austria; it owns much of the land upon which the north-western suburbs of Vienna stand. Among the points of interest within it are the old chapel of 1318, with Leopold’s tomb and the altar of Verdun, dating from the 12th century, the treasury and relic-chamber, the library with 30,000 volumes and many MSS., the picture gallery, the collection of coins, the theological hall, and the wine-cellar, containing an immense tun like that at Heidelberg. The inhabitants of Klosterneuburg are mainly occupied in making wine, of excellent quality. There is a large cement factory outside the town. In Roman times the castle of Citium stood in the region of Klosterneuburg. The town was founded by Charlemagne, and received its charter as a town in 1298.