Roudnice Castle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raudnitz Castle
Floor plan of the castle

The Roudnice Castle ( German Raudnitz Castle) is located in the center of Roudnice nad Labem ( German Raudnitz an der Elbe) on a rocky promontory above the Elbe on the site of an earlier Romanesque castle and is owned by the Czech family von Lobkowicz .

location

The castle is located in the center of the city on Karlsplatz and dominates the historic city center. The building is a three-winged construction in the shape of a horseshoe, the open side of which is closed by a connecting tract to form a square. In the middle of this connecting building is the main entrance to the castle and a bell tower that ends with a lantern. Raudnitz Castle is one of the largest castles in the Czech Republic with a courtyard measuring 58 m × 54 m.

history

The castle was built in the 17th century on the site of a Romanesque castle from the 12th century. The castle served to secure the Elbe shipping and the trade route from Prague to Upper Lusatia, which led here over the Elbe (first a ford, later a bridge). The remains of the original castle have been preserved in the foundations and cellars, partly also on the ground floor of today's castle.

The originally episcopal castle was built on a rocky promontory over the Elbe by Prince-Bishop Heinrich Břetislav III. , a nephew of King Vladislav II . It had a rectangular shape of 39 m × 15 m and had seven bastions and defense towers. The wall thickness was about 1.9 m at the base. The ballroom was located above a hall on the ground floor. In the southern area there was a building with a fortified gate.

Later, Bishop Johann IV von Dražice and Archbishop Ernst von Pardubitz rebuilt and extended it in the Gothic style with a massive tower. In 1369 the castle was also visited by Emperor Charles IV . There was a castle chapel since 1371. The reconstruction of the castle was completed in 1380. The castle served as a popular summer residence for the bishops and archbishops of Prague, among others. a. were here Archbishop Johann von Jenstein and priest Jan Hus .

Later the castle passed into secular possession, from 1421 it was owned by Johann Smiřický von Smiřice , who had further modifications carried out. In 1467 the troops of King George of Podebrady conquered the castle.

The next owner was Wilhelm von Rosenberg , whose wife Polyxena von Pernstein (1566–1642) married Count Adalbert Popel von Lobkowicz (1568–1628) after his death . In 1603 the castle came into the possession of the von Lobkowicz family.

The conversion to the baroque palace, as it is today, was carried out under Wenzel Eusebius von Lobkowicz (1609–1677) in the years 1652–1684 by the Italian architects Pietro Colombo , Francesco Caratti , Carl Orsolini and later Antonio della Porta . It was completed in 1684 under Ferdinand August von Lobkowitz (1655-1715).

interior

Access to the castle is via a double flight of stairs. There are more than 200 rooms in the castle, e.g. Some with tiled stoves from the 18th and 19th centuries, a chapel and a theater. The stucco and frescoes were done by Francesco Marchetti. The castle chapel is decorated with valuable frescoes by Giacomo Tencalla (1644–1689 / 1692).

Next to the castle there are commercial and administrative buildings, the castle garden and a riding hall.

The former Lobkowicz Castle was furnished with valuable furniture. The museum contained an excellent collection of weapons, Delftware and Italian faience , porcelain, silver, glass, religious objects, miniatures and furniture, as well as numerous objects of applied art from Europe and the Far East.

The Raudnitz collection of paintings by the noble families of Rosenberg , Pernstein and Lobkowicz was famous, as was the excellent collection of portraits by Spanish, Dutch and Central European painters. There was also the valuable Lobkowicz library (around 100,000 volumes) with valuable books and numerous manuscripts, etc. a. of the humanist Bohuslaus Lobkowicz von Hassenstein and the Lobkowicz archive.

Musical instruments and manuscripts by important composers of the 18th and 19th centuries were also kept in the collections. B. von Gluck , Mozart and Beethoven , u. a. the original of Beethoven's 3rd Symphony , which he dedicated to his patron Franz Joseph Maximilian von Lobkowitz (1772–1816). Many of these works were performed by the Lobkowicz Castle Theater Orchestra.

Raudnitz Castle in the 20th century

During the Second World War the Lobkowicz family emigrated to England. Count Maximilian von Lobkowicz (1888–1967) lived with his wife Gillian Somerville in London, where he was the ambassador of the Czechoslovak government in exile . Initially the castle was used as a barracks for the Wehrmacht.

From 1940 the German National Socialists began to convert the castle into an SS youth education home, with some rooms and built-in furniture being destroyed. The west wing with the castle theater was badly damaged in an air raid in the last days of the war.

After the war Maximilian Lobkowicz returned to his homeland. He started repairing the destroyed parts of the castle. In 1948 the Lobkowicz family was expropriated and the castle was nationalized. The art collections were moved from the castle and distributed to various collections and locations across the country, the most valuable art objects and the library were moved to the National Museum. For the next five decades the military administration and the military music school "Vít Nejedlý" of the Czechoslovak Army were housed in the castle . In 1965 the “Roudnice Gallery of Modern Art” was established in the manor's riding school.

In the 1990s Raudnitz Castle was restituted to the Lobkowicz family and rented to the Military Music School until the end of 2008. The income from the rental was used to renovate the buildings, in particular the roofs and the bell tower. The renovation has continued since 2009 and partners are being sought for the long-term use of the building. The castle has been open to the public for guided tours since 2012.

literature

Web links

Commons : Roudnice Castle  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files


Coordinates: 50 ° 25 ′ 33 ″  N , 14 ° 15 ′ 41.5 ″  E