Batthyány Castle (Pinkafeld)
Batthyány Castle in Pinkafeld in southern Burgenland was the center of rule and the permanent residence of members of the Batthyány family . The castle was rebuilt in the 18th and 19th centuries. The last major renovation took place in the years 1949 to 1952, so that the original appearance of the castle, which today houses a vocational school and is a listed building , can hardly be seen.
Attached to the castle is the coat of arms of the Batthyány family: the prongs of the crown symbolize the nine counties in which the family ruled. The togetherness of the Batthyánys is symbolized by a pelican sitting in the nest, which scratches its breast with its beak and soaks its young with the blood flowing out.
Origins of the castle
There are no sources about the construction and date of construction of the castle. The long held view that the castle was built in 1658 by Count Ádám Batthyány is now considered to be refuted. The castle is likely to have been built at the beginning of the 17th century, during the time of the Königsberg family . It is described as a large, multi-storey fort surrounded by a dairy farm . Between 1646 and 1648 Batthyány had the castle extended by a gate building, which was provided with a drawbridge. The arcaded Renaissance building stood in the middle of the houses in the village and was surrounded by a garden. The count died in 1659 after he had designated Pinkafeld as a widow's residence. It is certain that Ádám Batthyány's second wife and widow, Barbara Corbelli, moved into the castle in 1659 and that it subsequently became the center of the Pinkafeld rule . The widow Batthyány was, however, driven away by her step-sons Christoph and Paul because of their "scandalous behavior".
The Antonius Chapel was built in 1757 under Count Emmerich Batthyány. It stood south of the castle at the beginning of the Kastanienallee, which still exists today. Around the same time, the so-called Antonius statue was made from sandstone. It originally stood in front of the chapel gate and represents Saint Anthony of Padua .
Biedermeier period
Between 1805 and 1817, Countess Franziska Batthyány made the castle a meeting place for important personalities from the church, culture and science of her time. In those years it was considered the spiritual center of the romantic circle around the preacher Klemens Maria Hofbauer . Some members of this group, such as the poet and pastor Zacharias Werner , the painters Leopold Kupelwieser and Eduard Steinle , Roman Sebastian Zängerle (1824 to 1848 bishop in Graz-Seckau), the doctor and spiritual author Johann Emanuel Veith and perhaps also Klemens Maria Hofbauer himself stayed in the castle during the summer months.
Zacharias Werner had the kk treasurer (called Fanny) Count Nikolaus Batthyány and his wife Franziska probably during the Congress of Vienna met. In letters to acquaintances he was happy to mention the location “Pinkafeld in Hungary, a day trip from Vienna”. During his stays in the castle, however, he liked to meet his friends halfway between Vienna and Pinkafeld "especially since you have to pass a mountain without being far from Pinkafeld". He preached in the Pinkafelder Kalvarienkirche and led a penitential procession after a fire. Zacharias Werner also left the slogan he wrote on the Marian column in the center of the city of Pinkafeld .
Leopold Kupelwieser , known today, among other things, for his pictures by the composer Franz Schubert , painted a votive picture in memory of a fire that broke out in the castle in 1852, which fortunately did not cause any major damage, which is now in the fire department museum.
Eduard Steinle left valuable pictures for the Pinkafelder cemetery chapel .
In 1827 four gentlemen met in the Batthyány Castle. Emperor Franz I of Austria personally appointed the commission on January 23, 1827 at the request of the Batthyány rule. It consisted of the chief magistrate von Graefe from Leoben, the Graz magistrate von Pontner, a Herr von Szerdahely from Hungary and a representative of the military. The incidents around the band of robbers Stradafüßler and their leader Nikolaus Schmidhofer (called Holzknechtseppl ) were discussed . This gang, which had over 50 members over the years, had committed numerous gruesome and sadistic crimes in the border region in the years since 1822. The commission in the castle agreed to surround the entire area with soldiers and then to advance to Pinkafeld. As early as March 12, 1827, the soldiers were able to arrest the Holzknechtseppl and his subordinates, although this date is historically not entirely clear. After some of his cronies had already been executed, Schmidhofer found his end on Thursday, November 20, 1828 on the gallows on the Pinkafelder judicial mountain.
Turn of the 20th century to the present day
During the 19th century, the Antonius Chapel gradually fell into disrepair . In 1904 it was demolished after it was allegedly desecrated by the owner. After a night of partying, the host is said to have shot at the altarpiece. According to legend, mass has not been celebrated in the chapel since then. Once the candles went out, another time the priest felt sick. In addition, the bullet holes in the altarpiece kept reappearing despite repeated renovations. Today the altarpiece is in the castle - without any bullet holes. The picture shows St. Anthony. The statue of St. Anthony still reminds us of the chapel today. The statue stands in front of the boarding school of the vocational school.
At the turn of the 20th century, the castle came into the possession of the Batthyány-Taxis counts . Then Baron Neugebauer acquired it by marriage. In 1925 Reichsgraf Kagenegg bought the property. The later owner of Batthyány Castle, the municipality of Pinkafeld , made the building and the castle park available to the State of Burgenland free of charge for a state vocational school.
From 1935 to 1952, among other things, the Pinkafelder fruit processing cooperative was housed in the castle. During the Second World War , emergency lessons at the Pinkafeld secondary school took place for around two weeks (March 16 to March 28, 1945) in a room in the castle. Each class came to school three times a week. On March 28, 1945, secondary school lessons were discontinued until the end of the school year, “taking into account the seriousness of the situation”. Today apprentices are trained in the specialist departments for bricklayers, locksmiths, carpenters, joiners and motor vehicle mechanics in the state vocational school in the castle. The Pinkafelder Christkindlmarkt has been taking place in the castle courtyard for several years .
See also
literature
- Josef Karl Homma : History of the city of Pinkafeld. 1987.
- Susanne Marosi, Rudolf Köberl, Association for the Promotion of the City Museum Pinkafeld: Pinkafelder culture walk. Pinkafeld 2001.
- Leopold Schmied: The discovery of Burgenland in Biedermeier. Published by the Landesmuseum Eisenstadt, Eisenstadt 1959.
Individual evidence
- ^ András Koltai: Count Adam I von Batthyany, Adam Batthyány and his library, Burgenland State Archives and State Library, Eisenstadt 2002, ISBN 3-901517-33-2
- ↑ Christoph Tepperberg: The Holzknechtseppl from the commemorative publication 680 years of the market town of Riedlingsdorf. Page 23, Riedlingsdorf 2011, publisher Marktgemeinde Riedlingsdorf
Web links
- State vocational school Pinkafeld
- Entry via Pinkafeld on Burgen-Austria
Coordinates: 47 ° 21 '58 " N , 16 ° 7' 25" E