Altenau Castle
The now abandoned Altenau Castle was located in the city of Salzburg in the state of Salzburg .
history
In 1606, Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau had the Altenau pleasure palace built for himself and his partner Salome Alt and their children outside the Bergstrasse gate of Salzburg. The immediate reason for the construction were attacks of gout during the winter time of 1604/05 and a stroke by the archbishop, who paralyzed his right arm for four months. After his recovery, he had this pleasure palace built for himself and his family in order to escape the narrowness of the city. How much Wolf Dietrich enjoyed the stay can be seen from a plaque with a Latin inscription (brought to the Salzburg residence by Markus Sittikus ):
“ Chosen by God's grace, I rule the rushing Salzach. Since illness robs the suffering body of its strength, I built this quiet building as a quiet haven for life "
The palace was built on an alluvial cone 200 m north of the city walls. After supposedly only half a year of construction, the castle was completed. It wasn't particularly big, its dimensions were about 20 meters square. The name Altenau is derived from the family name of Salome, whereby Au was used to designate an elevated piece of land between unregulated waters (the Salzach at that time still had a very wide river bed, which reached from the Mönchsbergwand to the area of today's Schwarzstrasse; the Salzach regulation was only just beginning from 1852). The Alt family had already acquired "four herb gardens" there because other properties were "too close to the Salzach floods".
The building is described by a chronicler as follows: A large, wonderful peu like a castle or fortress and the outside is adorned with beautiful gardens of all kinds of plants, trees and fruits. The interior of the castle also delighted the chronicler: the most beautiful thing a person can imagine, exuberant wealth, the most beautiful women's clothes, the most beautiful gems made of beautiful gold, precious stones and pearls - like in a royal palace .
The castle was a popular place to stay for the Prince Archbishop and his family, who often had fun with his family, etc. in such a beautiful setting and often enjoyed the meals there both in the evening and in the morning and indulged in all sorts of honest games of joy and entertainment. The qualification as honest is interesting because it states that the archbishop's relationship with his family was seen as legitimate.
Altenau Castle later
After Wolf Dietrich's arrest, his successor and nephew Markus Sittikus von Hohenems drove Salome Alt and their children from Altenau Castle. In order to erase the memory of his predecessor, Markus Sittikus named the palace Mirabell . He himself avoided entering the castle. His successor Paris Lodron was different : from 1620–1642 he had the now Mirabell Palace and gardens included in the new strong fortification belt on the right bank of the Salzach, as can be seen in a view of the city by Matthaeus Merian from 1656. Paris Lodron herself enjoyed living in this castle and died here too. Maria Sidonia von Raitenau , nee Freiin von Welsperg-Primör, also spent the evening of her life in Altenau Castle from 1639 to 1646 with her two grandchildren Maria Anna Katharina and Rudolf Hannibal, for whom their mother, Maria Jakobea, showed little love and therefore the guardianship had taken over.
After several additions (such as a clock tower under Archbishop Johann Ernst Thun ), the builder Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt carried out a continuous conversion into a baroque , four-wing complex with an inner courtyard from 1721 to 1727 on behalf of Archbishop Franz Anton von Harrach .
Remnants of Altenau Castle are preserved in the south-west corner of today's castle next to today's rose garden in the basement. All the rising main walls and numerous dividing walls in this area probably also belong to the oldest construction phase, as these were demonstrably included in the new building during the renovation by Lukas von Hildebrandt.
In the park of Mirabell Palace, between the hedge theater and the fountain, there is the Susanna fountain . It dates back to 1612. According to popular tradition, the figure of Susanna represents Salome Alt.
literature
- Heinz Dopsch ; Robert Hoffmann: Salzburg. The history of a city (2nd edition). Anton Pustet University Press, Salzburg: 2008, ISBN 978-3-7025-0598-1 .
- Clemens M. Hutter: Mirabell. Castle and garden. Colorama Verlagsgesellschaft: Salzburg, 2010, ISBN 978-3-902692-19-1 .
- Eva Stahl-Botstiber: Salome Alt and the image of women in her time. In the Salzburg regional government cultural department (ed.), 4th Salzburg regional exhibition - Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau - founder of baroque Salzburg , pp. 55–58. Salzburg: 1987.
- Friederike Zaisberger : History of Salzburg . Oldenbourg-Verlag, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-486-56351-3 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Eva Stahl-Botstiber, 1987, p. 57.
- ^ Portrait of Maria Sidonia von Raitenau. In Salzburg regional government culture department (ed.), 4th Salzburg regional exhibition - Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau - founder of baroque Salzburg , p. 377. Salzburg: 1987..
- ^ Salome Alt
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 48 ′ 19.9 " N , 13 ° 2 ′ 31.3" E