Slavkov Castle

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Front view of the U-shaped Austerlitz Castle
Rear view
Castle Park

The Slavkov Castle (German Austerlitz ) is located in Slavkov in Okres Vyškov in the Czech Republic . Slavkov Castle and town became particularly well-known through the battle of Austerlitz .

history

In the place of the castle there was originally a fort, which was built at the beginning of the 12th century by the Teutonic Order and who built the largest Moravian army here. Since the beginning of the 16th century the castle belonged to the Moravian noble family von Kaunitz , for whom it served as a residence. Ulrich von Kaunitz had the fort converted into a renaissance castle. From 1696 it was rebuilt under Dominik Andreas von Kaunitz according to plans by the Italian architect Domenico Martinelli in the Baroque style and completed 50 years later under Wenzel Anton Kaunitz by Ignacio Valmaggini and Wenzel Petruzzi.

The U-shaped castle has 115 rooms. The hall of the ancestors and the Rubens hall (without works by Peter Paul Rubens ) as well as the chapel of the Holy Spirit are worth seeing . The oval social hall ( historical hall ) has a spatial and acoustic originality and contains rare frescoes by the Viennese painter Joseph Pichler . After the Battle of Austerlitz on December 6, 1805, the armistice between France and Austria was signed in this room .

In the castle there is a historical museum in the vaults as well as a multimedia animation about the battle of Austerlitz.

The 15 hectare palace garden was laid out in 1774 based on Versailles Palace as a French baroque garden with a central canal (now dry) and redesigned in the English style in the 19th century . The garden on the terrace by the castle with the sculptures by Giovanni Giuliani was created by Dutch gardeners around 1702. The original baroque shape has recently been restored.

literature

  • Jaromír Hanák: Austerlitz Castle - The Kaunitzen family seat; a jewel of Moravian baroque architecture. Brno 2004, ISBN 8090094112 .
  • Miloš Stehlík: Slavkov u Brna. Brno 1965.
  • Jiří Kroupa: Václav Antonín kníže Kounic-Rietberg a jeho doba (Wenzel Anton Prince Kaunitz-Rietberg and his time), Brno – Slavkov 1994.
  • Jiří Kroupa in: Jiří Kroupa (ed.), Dans le miroir des ombres. Moravie a la age baroque. 1670-1790. Paris – Rennes – Brno 2002, pp. 136–137.
  • Aleš Filip: V zámku a podzámčí. Barokní urbanism na Moravě. In: Tomáš Knoz (ed.): Morava v době baroka. Brno 2004, pp. 61-64.
  • Johann Kräftner (ed.): Giovanni Giuliani (1664–1744). Munich 2005, I, pp. 27-37.

Web links

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

Coordinates: 49 ° 9 '17 "  N , 16 ° 52' 28.4"  E