History
A short history of Schönbrunn Palace
From hunting ground to Habsburg summer seat to UNESCO listing.
Check dates and availability ↗A hunting estate first
The site was imperial hunting ground before it was a palace, and the name comes from a spring — the schöner Brunnen — found on the grounds in the seventeenth century.
Maria Theresa remakes it
The palace as you walk it today is largely hers. From 1743 she turned a hunting lodge into the Rococo summer residence of the Habsburg court, and the interiors still carry her taste rather than her father's.
Mozart, aged six
The story that a six-year-old Mozart played here for the empress in 1762 is one of the few palace anecdotes that survives scrutiny. The Hall of Mirrors is the room usually named.
Franz Joseph to UNESCO
Franz Joseph was born here in 1830 and died here in 1916. The palace and its gardens were listed by UNESCO in 1996 as a single Baroque ensemble rather than as a building alone.