Rhäzüns Castle

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Rhäzüns Castle from the south

The Rhäzüns Castle ( Romansh Chastè da Razen ) is located in the eastern part of the municipality of Rhäzüns in the canton of Grisons .

location

The castle is located on the lower reaches of the Hinterrhein before its confluence with the Vorderrhein on a striking plateau made of moraine rubble 65 m long and 25 m wide. To the east, the terrain slopes steeply towards the Rhine. Access via the artificially enlarged ditch is via a dam that was raised in 1700 from the southwest. The original access was either via a bridge or a steep ramp.

Location above the Hinterrhein
Plant plan

construction

The main buildings are leaned against the inside of a circular wall running from north to south . The wall runs into space at its ends and once contained a larger complex. The east side is limited by a weaker wall with loopholes for handguns from the 16th century.

The actual building complex consists of two rectangular residential wings and the chapel wing on the northwest corner. The north wing with wall paintings with motifs from the Tristan announcement dates from the second half of the 14th century. Doors, windows and roof are from the 16th century or younger. The elongated intermediate wing was built in the late 16th century under Johannes Planta von Wildenberg. An inscription above the door of the central wing and his coat of arms with initials and the year 1592 on the outer wall facing the courtyard remind of Planta's building activity. Johannes Planta was beheaded in 1572 on the occasion of a people's court.

The last major expansion phase dates from around 1700 when the outer gate and the chapel wing were built. However, a chapel seemed to have existed before that, as a castle chaplain was mentioned in 1396. The tiled roof is modern. Major renovations took place in 1927/28.

From the topography of the hill it can be concluded that large parts of the original system must have crashed. Documents from the 16th century confirm the laying down of an endangered round tower on the outermost edge of the terrain against the Rhine.

Significant alterations were made in the second half of the 16th century. In 1553 the northern main tower was laid down and perhaps at the same time the eastern part was abandoned and today's eastern wall was built. The interior of the castle is largely post-medieval.

history

View from the west

It is not known when the facility or its predecessor structures were erected. Presumably a castle already existed in the 10th century on the site of today's castle; a castellum Beneduces et Rezunnes is mentioned in documents of the emperors Otto I and Otto II in the years 960 and 976 .

The first proven representative of the Barons von Rhäzüns was Arnoldus de Ruzunne, who is mentioned in the Gamertinger documents in 1137/39. The first documented mention of Rhäzüns Castle itself appears in a sales document from the Disentis Monastery from 1282. After the death of the last Rhäzünser, Georg, in 1459, a long succession dispute arose between the Hohenzollern-Hechingen counts of Zollern and the Werdenbergers . In 1461, the castle fell to the Zollern, who pledged it to Conradin von Marmels in 1437 . In 1497, through an exchange for the rule of Haigerloch , it came into the possession of Maximilian I , as he was interested in a strategically important point. The Marmels, however, remained pledges and carried out various extensions to the castle; for example, prisons and bathing rooms were set up. During the Swabian War Rhäzüns was occupied by the Bündner in May 1499, but returned to the Marmels after the peace agreement.

After Hans von Mmel's death in 1553, Rhäzüns changed hands several times until 1695. Bartholomäus von Stampa followed as pledge holders and in 1558 Johannes von Planta , later through marriage from his daughter Anna to her husband Rudolf von Schauenstein , then to her brother Johann von Planta. In 1674 Rhäzüns was owned by Johann Travers von Ortenstein , son of Rudolf von Travers and Lucrezia von Planta, a daughter of Pompejus Planta .

In 1695 Austria took power and had it administered by civil servants. This prevented the integration of Rhäzün's rule into the politics of the three leagues . On December 29, 1809, rule of Austria came to France. After the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire, Rhäzüns returned to Austria for the time being in 1814 and was added to the canton of Graubünden in the Congress of Vienna in 1815 . The ceremonial handover to the canton took place on January 19, 1819 in the judges' hall at Rhäzüns Castle. The rulership rights of the municipalities came to the canton and the castle became private property.

It was bought by the last Habsburg administrator, the doctor and district judge Georg Anton Vieli. It remained in the possession of his family until 1927. At the beginning of the 1850s, Father Theodosius Florentini set up a girls' school there, which was moved to Rorschach in 1854 . After the tenant of the property had lived in it, the castle stood empty and began to crumble.

On December 11, 1926, it was bought by the “non-profit cooperative for Swiss Abroad Rhäzüns holiday home” and extensively renovated. In 1929, a holiday camp for the Swiss abroad was organized with the help of «Pro Campagna», a Swiss organization for the maintenance of rural building and living culture. The outbreak of war made these camps impossible and the palace came back into the possession of the Vieli family in 1942. In 1964 the castle was bought by Ems-Chemie AG and rented by Christoph Blocher for life.

literature

  • Thomas Bitterli: Swiss Castle Guide . Basel / Berlin 1995.
  • Anton von Castelmur: Castles and Palaces of the Canton of Graubünden , Volume I, Birkhäuser-Verlag, Basel 1940
  • Otto P. Clavadetscher, Werner Meyer : The castle book of Graubünden. Zurich 1984, ISBN 3-280-01319-4
  • Fritz Hauswirth: Castles and palaces in Switzerland. Volume 8. Neptun Verlag. Kreuzlingen, 1972
  • Werner Meyer: Castles of Switzerland , Volume 3, Silva-Verlag, Zurich 1983
  • Castle map of Switzerland, 2007 edition, Federal Office of Topography / Swiss Castle Association
  • Willy Zeller: Art and Culture in Graubünden , Haupt Verlag Bern, 1993
  • Linus Bühler: Rhäzüns (rule). In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 2017 .

Web links

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

Coordinates: 46 ° 47 ′ 54 "  N , 9 ° 24 ′ 12"  E ; CH1903:  seven hundred forty-nine thousand nine hundred seventy-four  /  184,896