Hartberg Castle

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Hartberg Castle (2011)
Hartberg Castle , after Georg Matthäus Vischer , Topographia Ducatus Stiria, Graz 1681
Access gate on the surrounding wall with the coat of arms of the former owners Paar and Heim
Hartberg Castle, interior view, with the count's coat of arms of those of Lengheimb , as former owners in the 17th century.
Arcade wing of Hartberg Castle, after modernization

The Hartberg Castle or Castle pair is a palace complex in the district capital Hartberg in Austrian state of Styria .

location

The castle is located at the foot of the Ringkogel in the northwest of the old town of Hartberg. It is surrounded by parts of the city's defensive wall and the Reckturm weir system . To the west is the city park, to the south the palace park and Herrengasse.

history

Owned by von Paar, Herberstein, Saurau and Lengheimb

The castle, first mentioned in a document in 1147, served as border security from the 12th century and was integrated into a chain of fortifications built by the Traungau family on behalf of the sovereigns at the highest point of today's Hartberg. The city that exists today developed from the settlement that arose around the castle complex. In addition to a Meierhof, the complex also included a mill and the St. John's Chapel.

In 1469 the Austrian military leader Andreas Baumkircher attacked Hartberg and dragged Anton von Herberstein to Schlaining in Burgenland. After the city was conquered by the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus in 1487 , Baumkircher's son Wilhelm received the city and castle as a fief. In 1490, however, it was reconquered by the Roman-German king and later Emperor Maximilian I. After Hartberg was owned by the sovereign until 1529, it was sold by Emperor Ferdinand I to the governor Siegmund von Dietrichstein . In the following decades the owner changed several times.

From 1576 to 1584, under the court postmaster and quartermaster Johann Baptist von Paar , who had owned the castle since 1571, the complex was converted into a Renaissance-style castle. Hartberg Castle received an entry in the family entails of the Paar family in 1626 . After economic difficulties in 1634, a seizure and the transfer of ownership to Hans Albrecht von Herberstein, who in turn passed the castle on to Governor Karl Graf von Saurau in 1641 , until it was bought by Georg Adam Graf von Lengheimb in 1682 . The new owner had the castle expanded and an official building built instead of the Meierhof.

Owned by the city of Hartberg from 1981

After more than a century, the Paar family regained control of Hartberg Castle in 1756. The family, at that time living in a Viennese palace, commissioned administrators to manage the property. In 1850, Karl Fürst Paar offered the township the castle for sale, but the trade failed because the purchase price was too high. Only after the sale of the Wiener Palais Paar in 1937 and the loss of the possessions in Bohemia in 1945, the very dilapidated castle was given to the city of Hartberg in 1981.

Todays use

Today, after a general renovation, it is rented first to the Stadtsparkasse, then to the cosmetics manufacturer and multilevel marketing company Ringana and serves as an education and event center. The castle complex is used today by the cosmetics manufacturer, who has set up its administrative headquarters here. Exceptions are a catering business in the former horse stable and the knight's hall , which is still accessible for public events.

Architecture and design

Hartberg Castle was first mentioned in 1147 as Hartberg Castle, although construction should have started shortly after 1122 under Konrad Bertha von Hartberg, who was appointed by Margrave Leopold I. The associated castle chapel is likely to have been demolished sometime after the 16th century , as only remnants of the former Johannis and Magdalenenkapelle can be found today. The castle itself was built from Romanesque ashlar stones . The first market was also built around 1128, today's Herrengasse. In the following centuries, the castle was expanded several times with farm buildings, some of which are still preserved today. In the 16th century the entire castle was redesigned in the Renaissance style. A century later, the striking arcade wing was also built.

As the last remnant of the former princely castle is Palas been preserved with the pointed arch. Its northern part dates from the Middle Ages. At this point, archaeological excavations have uncovered the foundations of the former keep with a ground plan of 9.8 × 11 meters. The outer staircase on the courtyard side has a bay window and double windows in the Renaissance style and is dated 1576.

On the second floor of the castle is the knight's hall, a large state room with a stone Renaissance fireplace, the double coat of arms of the Paar-Haim families and remains of wall paintings. The wing that adjoins the knight's hall wing in the north has a medieval core. At the end of the 16th century, however, a reconstruction took place in which the outer wall of the east wing was also built. This has two-story arcades on the courtyard side, the arches of which are currently glazed. In 1958, baroque wall paintings from the 17th century were uncovered on the first floor .

At the park gate on Herrengasse there is an inscription plaque from Johann Baptist von Paar and his wife Afra, née Haim , with the dates 1584 and 1598. It comes from the dismantled castle chapel.

See also

literature

  • Fritz Posch: History of the administrative district Hartberg. Second, historical-topographical part. Great historical regional studies of Styria 2 . Graz, Hartberg 1990.
  • Kurt Woisetschläger, Peter Krenn: DEHIO Steiermark (excluding Graz) . Schroll, Vienna 1982, ISBN 3-7031-0532-1 , p. 166 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stadtgemeinde Hartberg website history
  2. ^ A b Woisetschläger, Krenn: Dehio Steiermark (excluding Graz). P. 166.

Web links

Commons : Hartberg Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 16 ′ 51 ″  N , 15 ° 58 ′ 1 ″  E