Dornau Castle

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Dornau Castle; overall view

Dornau Castle (Slovenian Dvorec Dornava ) is a late Baroque castle in the Slovenian municipality of Dornau . It is the largest baroque palace in Slovenia. The castle is also shown in the coat of arms of the Dornau municipality.

location

Dornau Castle is located in the Pettauer Feld (Slovenian Ptujsko polje ), an Ice Age gravel plain. The next larger town is Pettau , about seven kilometers east of the municipality of Dornava. In Dornau, it is located in the northeast corner of the built-up municipality. The castle park begins behind the castle, in front of the castle an old avenue leads to the national road 713.

history

Vischer - Topographia Ducatus Stiria - Dornau before the renovations

First records from 1435 report the construction of a castle, which was built on the site of a stately hunting farm. It was owned by the Lords of Pettau . In 1446 this castle was built by Johann Hunyadi during the fighting against the German King Friedrich III. destroyed. The castle was rebuilt and in 1526 Baron Bernhardin I von Herberstein is named as the owner. The Counts of Sauer later acquired the small castle. In 1666 the first renovations are reported. The building burned down in 1695, and the Counts of Sauer built a small baroque palace from 1700 to 1708, which formed the basis for today's construction. In 1739 Anton Ferdinand von Attems bought the castle together with the Dornau lordship. From 1753 to 1755 the castle was rebuilt under Joseph Thaddäus von Attems and received its current appearance.

Postcard Schloss Dornau; approx. 1925-1945

In 1820 Prince Karl Wilhelm Philipp von Auersperg bought the castle and the rule. At the end of the 19th century, the von Pongratz family owned the castle. In 1945 the family was expropriated by the Yugoslav state and a tank brigade was stationed in the castle. A few years later the castle was used as a psychiatric clinic. After Slovenia's independence, this was converted into a home for disabled children and young people with an associated training center (one of the largest in Slovenia). The building has been empty and not in use since the turn of the millennium. A comprehensive renovation is planned (as of 2018).

description

architecture

Today's palace is the work of the Viennese palace builder Josef Hueber , who redesigned and expanded the palace between 1753 and 1755. The old building was enlarged, the facade redesigned and thus the center of a three-wing complex. To the right and left, two small, almost square pavilions, each around ten meters wide, were added, which are closed on the garden side. Behind these extensions there are two more pavilions on each wing, which are parallel to the front ones. The servant house and the former stables are located on the eastern edge of the castle park, about fifty meters from the main house. The whole complex is attributed to the Rococo era and is one of the few secular buildings of the late baroque in Slovenia.

The main house received an ornate facade with double windows and a Greek gable. Behind it is a spacious entrance hall that extends over two floors. This is decorated with frescoes by Johann Caspar Waginger. In 1708, under the Count von Sauer, he painted the hall ceiling with the "Admission of Heracles to Olympus"; The heroic deeds of Heracles are depicted on the side walls.

In the building there is also a small rococo-style castle chapel dedicated to the Immaculate Virgin Mary Immaculata (Slovenian: Brezmadežna Devica ). The castle contained numerous Rococo furniture, tapestries and paintings. Much was lost in the chaos of war, most of which is now in the Ptuj Provincial Museum.

  • entrance

  • West wing

  • A castle room around 1870

  • Fresco by Johann Caspar Waginger in the reception hall

  • Aerial view of Dornau Castle

Castle Park

While the first hundred meters of the park represent a typical baroque garden with a fountain as the focal point, the rear part of the palace park was redesigned as an English landscape garden around 1750. It originally began on the old avenue near the Marian column from the first half of the 17th century, formed an axis through the castle and ended in a sculpture of Johannes Nepomuk on the banks of the Pößnitz . In the front baroque part of the park there is a Neptune fountain from the 18th century. Statues of Greek philosophers and dwarves decorate the part of the park near the castle. The more valuable figures were brought to the Pettau Provincial Museum. After the Second World War , large parts of the palace gardens were converted into arable land, so that the English Garden is only around 1700 m long and 90 m wide today. The baroque part of the garden is the largest baroque garden in Slovenia. The entire complex has been protected as a natural monument since 1973.

  • Neptune fountain in the old baroque garden

  • Marian column at the beginning of the avenue leading to the castle

  • English garden

literature

  • Ivan Stopar: Castles and Chateaux in Slovenia. Cankarjeva Založba, Ljubljana 1989, ISBN 86-361-0628-1 .

Web links

Commons : Schloss Dornau  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://rkd.situla.org ; Ministry of Culture of Slovenia; Register of immovable cultural heritage, Evidenčna številka enote: 120
  2. ↑ http://rkd.situla.org ; Ministry of Culture of Slovenia; Register of immovable cultural heritage, Evidenčna številka enote: 7876
  3. ↑ http://rkd.situla.org ; Ministry of Culture of Slovenia; Register of immovable cultural heritage, Evidenčna številka enote: 29299
  4. ↑ Inventory najpomembnejše naravne dediščine Slovenije (Dornava-park ob dvorcu), Ljubljana, 1988

Coordinates: 46 ° 26 ′ 13.7 ″  N , 15 ° 56 ′ 54 ″  E