Photographer Jeffrey Martin of the website 360cities has created what maybe the world’s largest indoor photograph ever: a mindboggling 40 gigapixel, 360-degree image of the exquisite Philosophical Hall in the magnificent 12th century Strahov Monastery Library in Prague. Using the robotic GigaPanBot system, Martin shot 3,000 images over 5 days and then “stitched” them together to create one enormous photo. You can explore and navigate around the zoomable, high-resolution photo at the 360cities website.

Sadly, this maybe the only way for most of us to see the Philosophical Hall these days, as it is generally off-limits to visitors. I’m glad that I got to see the library, and especially the 18th century trompe l’oeil ceiling, twenty years ago when the library was wide open for traveling booklovers.