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. In the 1740s and 1750s the palace was built out and remodelled for her as the summer residence of the Habsburg court, and the interiors still carry her taste rather than her father's.
Mozart, aged six
The palace says it is believed that the six-year-old Mozart played for Maria Theresa in 1762, in the Hall of Mirrors.
Franz Joseph to UNESCO
Franz Joseph was born here 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.