The abbey was founded in 1089 when Leopold II, Margrave of Austria gave one of his castles to Benedictine monks from Lambach Abbey. A monastic school, the Stiftsgymnasium Melk, was founded in the 12th century, and the monastic library soon became renowned for its extensive manuscript collection. The monastery's scriptorium was also a major site for the production of manuscripts. In the 15th century the abbey became the centre of the Melk Reform movement which reinvigorated the monastic life of Austria and Southern Germany. Today's Baroque abbey was built between 1702 and 1736 to designs by Jakob Prandtauer. Particularly noteworthy are the abbey church with frescos by Johann Michael Rottmayr and the library with countless medieval manuscripts, including a famed collection of musical manuscripts and frescos by Paul Troger. Since 1625 the abbey has been a member of the Austrian Congregation, now within the Benedictine Confederation. In his novel The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco named one of the protagonists Adso of Melk as a tribute to the abbey and its famous library. Among its alumni was the 19th-century Austrian dramatist and short-story writer, Friedrich Halm. Melk Abbey is also the metaphorical climax (a peak in a mountain range of discovery) of Patrick Leigh Fermor's autobiographical account of his walking tour across pre-WW II Europe in A Time of Gifts, which includes a description of the Abbey at that time

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