Chillon Castle

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Chillon Castle
Chillon Castle

Chillon Castle

Creation time : First mentioned in 1005
Castle type : Moated castle
Conservation status: Receive
Place: Veytaux
Geographical location 46 ° 24 '51 "  N , 6 ° 55' 39"  E Coordinates: 46 ° 24 '51 "  N , 6 ° 55' 39"  E ; CH1903:  560700  /  140441
Height: 385  m above sea level M.
Chillon Castle (Canton of Vaud)
Chillon Castle

The Chillon Castle ( French Château de Chillon [ ʃiˈjɔ̃ ]) in Veytaux , five kilometers southeast of Montreux , is a moated castle in Switzerland .

location

Aerial photo (1948)

The castle is famous for its location on the rocky island île de Chillon on the east bank of Lake Geneva . The rock island is only separated from the shore by a 10 meter wide ditch. With a length of 120 meters and a width of up to 48 meters, it measures around 5070 m² in area, making it the largest of the six islands in Lake Geneva. In 2013, Chillon Castle had 349,000 visitors, making it the most-visited historical building in Switzerland. Thanks to the richly structured design and the location on the lake in front of an imposing mountain backdrop, the monument has been one of the most popular landscape images in western Switzerland since the 18th century.

The narrow passage at the castle between the lake and the steep mountains made it easier to control the road from Lausanne to the Great St. Bernard and over the Simplon Pass . An important and profitable customs post was located here in the Middle Ages .

history

The rock that Chillon Castle completely occupies was already inhabited in the Bronze Age. The castle, first mentioned in 1150, is one of the older moated castles. The oldest buildings still visible today in the inner castle district, including the main tower, date from the 11th century, when the Lords of Alinges served the diocese of Sion as nobles .

In the 12th century, the castle passed to the Savoy . The landside castle wall (built under Thomas I of Savoy) and the structure still visible today with several inner courtyards come from this time . Individual rooms have excellent building equipment, some of which dates back to the Savoy era. To the east of the castle, on the site of the town of Chillon , construction began on the ville neuve de Chillon ("New Town of Chillon"), now known as Villeneuve .

On the land side of the fortress, Peter II of Savoy had three semicircular towers built as early as 1255, which were further expanded in the 14th and 15th centuries and were given loopholes and cast holes for better defense. Battlements were built into the walls. These constant renovations paid off: from here, shipping traffic on Lake Geneva and the important land route along the lake to the St. Bernhard Pass could be controlled and subject to customs duties. In the tower-like residential wing , the Camera domini ( Tour d'Alinges ), remains of the frescoes from 1342 can be seen.

The castle contains large representative rooms for festive receptions, but also cozy living rooms with wall paintings and old chimneys. After all, the castle served the Counts of Savoy as a palace residence. However, only until the end of the 15th century, after which only a bailiff kept watch. Many of the rooms are decorated with wall paintings showing the motif of St. George slaying a dragon . The vaulted wooden ceiling of the great hall is also worth seeing.

The castle was taken by the Bernese during the conquest of the Savoy Vaud in 1536 , after they had to leave without having achieved anything 60 years earlier. This time the crew fled into the lake. The Bernese freed François Bonivard (1496–1570), the prior from Geneva, who had been incarcerated six years earlier for his advocacy of the Reformation and the independence of Geneva. Lord Byron's famous poem The Prisoner of Chillon addresses this subject after visiting the castle in 1816. The pillar to which Bonivard was chained for years can be viewed in the prison rooms on the lake side of the castle. The large, only partially preserved, Bernese coat of arms painted on the surrounding wall on the lake side of the castle reminds of the time of the Bernese rule.

After the conquest, the castle was the seat of the Bernese governors of Chillon until 1733 . Since 1798 it has been in the possession of the canton of Vaud , which used it as an armory, weapons store, hospital for the disabled and as a prison, among other things. In the prison rooms with their unusual ribbed vaults , the guard room and a gallows have also been preserved.

In the 19th century, Chillon would almost have been demolished as a stone quarry for the construction of the railway, had it not been for a protest from a historically interested MP. From 1897 to 1934, the canton and the monument conservator Albert Naef restored the historical condition of the building in an extensive restoration project.

The castle can be reached via a wooden bridge from the 18th century, which then replaced a drawbridge . The entire complex consists of 25 buildings that are grouped around three courtyards that are protected by two circular walls.

Since 1957 Chillon has been connected to the public transport network by the Vevey – Villeneuve trolleybus . This in turn replaced the Vevey – Chillon tram , which opened in 1888 and which was extended to Villeneuve in 1903. Furthermore, the Veytaux-Chillon train station is about a five-minute walk from the castle, from where S-Bahn trains run to Villeneuve and Lausanne. The scheduled boat stops right next to the castle and the landing stage is called Château-de-Chillon.

gallery

  • Chillon Castle from the north, in the background the Dents du Midi

  • Western (rear) courtyard of the castle

  • Gothic cellar vault and floor fragments made from limestone from the region

  • Sunset at Chillon Castle

  • Partial view of the chapel, photograph by Max van Berchem from 1899

  • Chillon Castle Video

literature

  • Jean-Pierre Chapuisat, Eileen Walliser: The Chillon Castle VD. (Swiss Art Guide, No. 113). Edited by the Society for Swiss Art History. Bern 1989, ISBN 978-3-85782-113-4 .
  • Ariane Devanthéry (Ed.): Chillon. Tours, détours, alentours. Veytaux 2014, ISBN 9782839914956 .
  • Patrick Vincent: Chillon. A literary guide. Veytaux 2010.

Web links

Commons : Category: Château de Chillon  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reto E. Wild: Travel destination Switzerland. Migros Magazin, Zurich July 13, 2015, page 8
  2. ^ Evelyne Lüthi-Graf / MF: Chillon. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .