Taxis Castle (Trugenhofen)

Taxis Castle, 1867. Graphic by Josef Resch

View of the west front of the castle

Taxis Castle , also called Trugenhofen Castle , is located in Dischingen in the Heidenheim district in Baden-Württemberg . It consists of several buildings, including the Cavalier Building, Theater Building, Chapel Building, Prinzenbau and the Fürstenbau in the lower and upper courtyard.

A hunting museum was housed in the former kitchen building. The castle cannot be visited, but the English Forest adjacent to the castle is open to the public.

history

View from the east of Schloss Taxis

Castle Park

Today's castle was in medieval site of the castle Trugenhofen. Its residents, the Lords of Trugenhofen, were possibly ministerials of the Counts of Dillingen , later Reichsministeriale. The castle later passed into the possession of the Counts of Oettingen, then the Lords of Hürnheim zu Katzenstein, the Lords of Westernach , the Schenken von Castell , the Lords of Leonrod and finally in 1734 to the second Prince of Thurn and Taxis , Anselm Franz von Thurn and Taxis , who bought the area including Markttischingen for 150,000 guilders.

Over the years, the princely family had the castle expanded into a representative summer residence . Important master builders of their time such as Joseph Dossenberger (who also built the Dischingen Church of St. Johannes Baptist on behalf of the Prince in 1769–71 ), Johann Georg Hitzelberger and Thomas Schaidhauf received building contracts. The imposing palace complex combines many architectural styles from Renaissance to Baroque , Rococo and Classicism to Neo-Gothic . At the highest point of the area is the three-storey New Palace , a rectangular, gable-roofed Renaissance building with three transverse, helmet-roofed corner towers. Several gardens delimit the north, west and east of the palace.

The fourth Prince of Thurn und Taxis, Karl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis , banished his first wife, Princess Auguste of Württemberg, under strict house arrest to Trugenhofen Castle in 1776 after several assassinations on his person. With royal permission, Trugenhofen Castle was renamed to Taxis Castle in 1817 . The fifth prince, Karl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis , died there in 1827 and his wife Therese zu Mecklenburg in 1839.

Particularly noteworthy are the renovations from the 19th century, which were carried out by the Munich architect Ludwig Foltz . He built the royal villa in Regensburg on behalf of the Bavarian King Maximilian II . From 1859, Foltz modernized Taxis Castle in neo-Gothic style for the Hereditary Prince Maximilian Anton and his wife Duchess Helene in Bavaria . In addition to cladding building facades, connecting corridors were also built between the individual buildings as part of the renovation work. The old glass house (first mentioned in literature in 1801) was torn down and replaced by a greenhouse with a modern glass and iron construction. Its iron framework was made by the Swabian ironworks in Wasseralfingen .

The Thurn und Taxis castle served as a summer residence for over 250 years. From here all possessions were ruled from May to September.

The Princely Riding Hall is located in the immediate vicinity of the castle. This was built in 1775 and 1776 and is now a cultural monument of particular importance. In 2011 and 2012 the building was completely renovated.

The castle is surrounded by many avenues, coming from all four directions. In the English Garden , chestnut avenues always lead to the castle, whereas linden avenues lead to the merrymaking.

literature

Günter Schmitt : Castle Guide Swabian Alb, Volume 6 - Ostalb: Hiking and discovering between Ulm, Aalen and Donauwörth . Biberacher Verlagsdruckerei, Biberach an der Riß 1995, ISBN 3-924489-74-2 , pp. 47–56.
Ursula Angelmaier: The renaming of Trugenhofen Castle in Taxis Castle . In: Heimat- und Altertumsverein Heidenheim (Hrsg.): Yearbook 1999/2000 . Self-published, Heidenheim 2000, ISSN 0931-5608 .
Ursula Angelmaier: Carl Anselm Fürst von Thurn und Taxis (1733–1805) and his summer residence . In: Heimat- und Altertumsverein Heidenheim (Ed.): Yearbook 2007/2008 . Self-published, Heidenheim 2008, ISSN 0931-5608 .
Rolf-Dieter Blumer, Gertrud Clostermann, Hermann Klos, Andreas Menrad, Markus Numberger: The riding arena at Taxis Castle in Dischingen-Trugenhofen. A restoration story. In: Denkmalpflege in Baden-Württemberg , Volume 39, 2010, Issue 3, pp. 161–170 ( doi : 10.11588 / nbdpfbw.2010.3.11514 ).

Web links

Commons : Schloss Taxis - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Castle Taxis on burgeninventar.de

Individual evidence

^ Philipp Ludwig Hermann Röder: Geographisches Statistische-Topographisches Lexikon von Schwaben [...] Volume 2 . Ulm 1801, p. Sp. 843 f .
↑ Viktoria Strauss: The glass houses of Taxis Castle (former Trugenhofen Castle) . In: Südtiroler Burgeninstitut (Hrsg.): ARX - Castles and palaces in Bavaria, Austria and South Tyrol . tape 2 , vol. 41.Bolzano 2019, p. 9-14 .

48.691819444444 10.371919444444Coordinates: 48 ° 41 ′ 31 ″ N , 10 ° 22 ′ 19 ″ E

[1] Philipp Ludwig Hermann Röder: Geographisches Statistische-Topographisches Lexikon von Schwaben [...] Volume 2 . Ulm 1801, p. Sp. 843 f .

[2] Viktoria Strauss: The glass houses of Taxis Castle (former Trugenhofen Castle) . In: Südtiroler Burgeninstitut (Hrsg.): ARX - Castles and palaces in Bavaria, Austria and South Tyrol . tape 2 , vol. 41.Bolzano 2019, p. 9-14 .