Nostitz Palace, Baroque palace on Maltese Square in Malá Strana, Prague, Czech Republic

Nostitz Palace is a monumental baroque building on Maltézské náměstí in Prague's Malá Strana, with two courtyards and an eleven-axis main facade. A late-baroque portal with a balustraded balcony sits on the central axis, and a pierced attic above the seven middle axes carries statues of emperors between vases. Twenty-two original baroque window grilles survive on the ground floor.

Jan Hartvík of Nostitz, supreme chancellor of the Kingdom of Bohemia, had the palace built between 1660 and 1676 on the site of the Lazar Garden and two demolished houses, U zelené růže and U zlatého medvěda. The design is attributed to Francesco Caratti or Carlo Lurago. Around 1760 Antonín Haffenecker added the rococo portal and in 1765 laid out the garden and riding school.

The picture gallery occupied the first-floor cross corridor, where about 40 oils by Dutch and Italian masters of the 17th and 18th centuries still hang. The library, founded with the family collections, holds 14,000 volumes including incunabula and is managed by the National Museum. Václav Bernard Ambrosi painted the library ceiling with an allegory of the Birth of Sciences.

The building now houses the Ministry of Culture and is centrally located in the old town, easily reached by public transport. The Malá Strana setting offers simple access to other attractions and museums in the neighborhood.

The palace's library hall spans two floors of the south wing, lit by a window from the gallery corridor, with an iron-railed gallery around the upper level and a hidden door in the wall. On its ceiling Václav Bernard Ambrosi painted an allegory, The Birth of Sciences. Enlightenment scholar Josef Dobrovský used the library, and Nostitz had a house built for him at Kampa.