Hohe Schule, Loosdorf, Austria

The Hohe Schule stands in Loosdorf, a village near Melk in Lower Austria. Built around 1574 by John William of Losenstein, it was a Protestant grammar school for boys and girls from noble and common families. The school occupied a modest building with a small inner courtyard and distinctive arcades. Inside, ribbed vaults lined the corridors, giving the place a Renaissance feel. John William also restored the nearby Schallaburg castle and the parish church in the same style. Today the building is the only surviving 16th-century Protestant school in Austria. The school’s statutes, printed in Augsburg in 1574, survive in two copies. They set unusually early starting ages of four to six and taught German, Latin, music, religion, mathematics and more. In 1592 the Lower Austrian estates granted the school the title of Landschaftsschule and an annual subsidy of up to a thousand guilders. Among its teachers was Daniel Lackner, the music master, and Vicar Balthasar Masco, who wrote a book on earthquakes. Known pupils included the Enenkel brothers and Johann Wilhelm von Stuberberg. After closing in 1627 the building became a private home for Austrian gentry until 1809. Later it housed shops and apartments, and in the 1980s and 1990s it was restored. The house now contains about ten flats grouped around the small courtyard. Protected as a historic monument, it offers a quiet glimpse of 16th-century education and architecture in the region.