Library

A mysterious room, or the manor’s thirteenth chamber, as guests call it. It conceals a treasure trove of books, a powerful story and an inexhaustible energy that can be felt as soon as one crosses the threshold.

The Apponyi family book collection is known to this day as the Apponyi Library (Bibliotheca Apponiana). It was founded in Vienna in 1774 by Count Anton Juraj Apponyi (1751–1817) and originally contained around 30,000 volumes. Its collections included more than 400 incunabula, including Dante’s Divine Comedy with illustrations by Sandro Botticelli and the Gutenberg Bible from 1455.

The library was later moved to Bratislava, where it served as a public library from 1827 to 1846. It was the first public library in Bratislava and Upper Hungary. Following disagreements with the city, Count Anton Apponyi (1782–1852) had it moved again, this time to Oponice, to the family manor in the park, and had a separate gallery built for it, known as the north wing. It was designed in a highly forward-thinking manner, with enormous French terrace doors leading into the beautiful park and ingenious galleries running around the perimeter of the room, providing access to all the books. For this solution, after more than 165 years the library and manor were recognised by a team of architects and received the Phoenix Wing – a prestigious award evoking the rebirth of the mythical Phoenix from the ashes.

The library’s fate was sealed after 1948, when the communists nationalised it together with the manor. A period of devastation and decline began, as the library was left without its custodian and the precious books suffered from woodworm and mould. This unimaginable barbarism was interrupted in 1956–58 by the Franciscan and political prisoner Vševlad Jozef Gajdoš, who catalogued and cleaned the library on behalf of Matica slovenská, thereby saving it from destruction and being burned. The books were stored in the manor until 1972, when they were taken away in a deplorable condition to the state depositories of the Slovak National Library in Martin, and the library interior was burned in the local park.

From 2007 to 2011, the manor and library were renovated by the Slovak-Swiss consortium IP Slovakia and, following an agreement with the Slovak National Library, a contract was signed to return the Apponyi Library to the restored manor premises. The library interior was reconstructed according to drawings, postcards and photographs by nearly one hundred carpenters from Zvolen and is among the most beautiful historic interiors in Slovakia.

The library contains rare works dating from 1515 to 1940. Authors of particular interest include Macchiavelli, Petrarch, Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, Leonardo Da Vinci, Dumas, Balzac, Newton and Linnaeus, among many others.

The historic books may be viewed and studied only with the permission of the Slovak National Library. Study is permitted solely for scientific and educational purposes. Digitised books can also be found in the SNK archive at: onk.snk.sk

In case of questions, you can contact the library administrator at the contact details below:

Mgr. Ondrej Šomodi

tel: 0915 851 883

e-mail: ondrej.somodi@snk.sk

Telephone contact for reception: +421 383 238 111

Opening hours and price list

* ITIC cardholders are not entitled to a discount on admission