Steinau Castle

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Castle keep from the 13th century with an attached stair tower from 1571
City side entrance
Patio. View of the entrance gate on the city side, the kitchen on the left edge of the picture
Intermediate course
View of one of the farm buildings placed like a bastion. On the left the kennel wall, on the right the castle

The Steinau Castle in Hesse Steinau was a secondary residence of the lords and counts of Hanau . It is the earliest, largest and best-preserved early Renaissance palace complex in Hesse.

history

The complex emerged from a medieval castle , but nothing is known about its appearance. It could be the foundation of the Fulda Abbey. At the time of written evidence at the end of the 13th century, the castle is initially in allodial possession of the Counts of Rieneck . With the marriage between Ulrich I. von Hanau and Elisabeth von Rieneck , the town and castle passed to the Lords of Hanau as dowry . The castle was used in later times, like the castles in Schwarzenfels and Windecken , as the widow's seat of Hanau countesses.

The attachment

Parts of the ring wall and the keep of the medieval complex are still preserved, a mighty tower with a square floor plan and now a baroque dome that towers over the complex. In the medieval defense system of the town of Steinau, it protected the most endangered side to the south, while the north of the town was protected by the then impassable Kinzigaue .

Steinau Castle is a pentagonal complex that was probably based on early fortresses of the Italian Renaissance. The draft was given to Count Reinhard zu Solms , guardian of Count Philipp III. von Hanau-Munzenberg , attributed. A foreman from Steinau by the name of Asmus was probably leading the way.

Both the always dry moat with its high walls and the core complex are pentagonal, although half of the south wing, which was demolished in the 19th century, is missing. Until then, the castle consisted of a closed, pentagonal ring of buildings. At four of the five corners of the Zwinger there are bastions protruding farm buildings with set stair towers, at the fifth corner there is the field gate . At the two gatehouses there and in the middle of the north side, the moat was spanned by drawbridges towards the city and outside . In the pentagonal courtyard there are four stair towers that open up the building vertically.

The complex was built in several construction phases, mainly in the 16th century. The last expansion was a connecting building between the castle and the previously free north gate to the city in the early 17th century.

building

The west wing, the hall building , was built between 1525 and 1528 under the government of Count Philip II of Hanau-Münzenberg . The late Gothic curtain arches on the windows are typical of its exterior decor - a modern form around 1525, which is otherwise only found in Saxony and Thuringia . There is a three-storey bay window on the north gable side of the hall building. The two-aisled courtyard room with a net vault on five columns was housed on the ground floor . On the first floor there were the “state chambers” for high guests. The former banquet hall on the second floor has the remainder of a stucco ceiling.

Due to the early death of Count Philip II, construction was interrupted until 1542. Under the tutelage and later under the government of Count Philip III. from Hanau-Munzenberg the work was continued quickly. To the south of the hall, the kitchen with a magnificent bay window was built by 1546 . The spacious kitchen on the ground floor is equipped with a huge fireplace . The count's apartment was in the rooms above the kitchen. The north and east wings were built between 1551 and 1553.

The eight-storey keep, with a roof about 40 meters high, was supplemented with a stair tower in 1571 , the spiral staircase of which has since been used to reach the former high entrance . On the top massive floor of the tower, a detached tower house was built in the middle of the 16th century , but is now surrounded by a closed viewing gallery at a height of about 32 meters . Above this is an octagonal, hooded half - timbered building , which also serves as a lookout point. The windows on both levels can be closed with folding shutters and offer a very good view of Steinau and the surrounding hilly landscape. Earlier consisted here of sight to four out of the Landwehr standing waiting , of which early signals could be given in case of imminent danger.

In front of the castle are the stables from 1557/58 (today: Marionette Theater Die Holzköppe ) and the cattle yard with buildings from the 16th and 18th centuries.

The complex with the castle museum and the Brothers Grimm memorial has been part of the administration of the State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse since 1957 .

Since the summer of 2015, a large exhibition on the life and work of the Brothers Grimm with important original documents and works of art from the Bad Homburg and Kassel collections has been presented in the Schloss zu Steinau an der Straße.

literature

  • Magnus Backes: Hessen = Georg Dehio - Handbook of German Art Monuments. Hesse. 2nd Edition. Munich 1982.
  • Elmar Brohl : Fortresses in Hessen. Published by the German Society for Fortress Research eV, Wesel, Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2013 (=  German Fortresses  2), ISBN 978-3-7954-2534-0 , pp. 183–188.
  • G. Ulrich Großmann : Central and South Hesse . Dumant art travel guide. Cologne 1995.
  • Elisabeth Heil: Steinau Castle , Schnell Art Guide, Regensburg 2001
  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 3. Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2000, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , pp. 374-375.
  • Christian Ottersbach : The castles of the lords and counts of Hanau (1166–1642). Studies on castle politics and castle architecture of a noble house. Ed .: Magistrate of the Brothers Grimm City of Hanau and Hanauer Geschichtsverein 1844 eV , Hanau 2018, ISBN 978-3-935395-29-8 (=  Hanauer Geschichtsblätter Vol. 51 ), pp. 575–626.
  • Christian Ottersbach: Steinau an der Straße - an early bastion castle. In: Marburger Correspondenzblatt zur Burgenforschung, yearbook of the Marburger Arbeitskreis für Burgenforschung eV, Vol. 5, 2005/2006, pp. 51–80.
  • Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , pp. 338-340.
  • Administration of the State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse (Hrsg.): Steinau. Lock . Bad Homburg 1978. [leaflet]
  • Ernst Julius Zimmermann : Hanau city and country . 3rd edition, Hanau 1919, ND 1978.

Web links

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

Coordinates: 50 ° 18 ′ 42.8 ″  N , 9 ° 27 ′ 40 ″  E