Trauttmansdorff Castle

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Trauttmansdorff Castle from the south

The Trauttmansdorff Castle is located on the eastern edge of the city of Merano in the Burggrafenamt ( South Tyrol ) and is home to the Touriseum . The castle is located in the middle of the botanical garden of the city of Merano, the " Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle ", which opened in 2001. The castle became famous, among other things, through the stay of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth (a signposted Sissi path leads from the Merano spa promenade to the botanical garden). The area has an area of ​​12 hectares and a path network of 7 kilometers; the difference in altitude is 100 meters. The owner is the autonomous province of Bolzano and the operator of the state museums.

history

Trauttmansdorff Castle from the west

Around 1300, the small Neuberg Castle was built on the site of today's castle and was mentioned in a document in 1327. The vestibule of the castle, which was painted around 1900, bears witness to the coats of arms of the noble houses of the past, along with the Austrian states on the ceiling along the walls. After that, the castle was owned by the Angerheim from 1307 to 1354 , according to other information only until 1351, this was followed by the von Suppan family with Jakob Suppan von Taransberg until 1399, the Feigenstein by the brothers Hans and Ulrich, who also built the first chapel , from 1400 to 1488, which was followed by the Zwingenstein family until 1537, together with the Rästler family , who left in 1514 and bequeathed their share to the Santner family , who were in part ownership until 1537. The aristocratic Trauttmansdorff family bought the castle in 1543. The buyer's son, Franz, had the castle expanded on a large scale. After this line of the Trauttmansdorff family died out in 1678, the property came to the nobles of Stachelburg in 1697 at the latest , who are said to have owned it until 1729. Later the von Mamming and Mohr came into joint fiefdom. In the 18th century the castle fell into disrepair. In 1777 a tower even collapsed , which destroyed the castle chapel . In 1805 under Bavarian rule the property was allodialized and sold to farmers.

In 1846 Joseph von Trauttmansdorff , Count of Styria , moved to Meraner Land and in 1847 bought the castle, which had already fallen into disrepair and had been abandoned by his relatives 150 years earlier. Joseph von Trauttmansdorff also expanded the castle, and many neo-Gothic elements were introduced. The castle, called Trauttmansdorff Castle since then , became the model for many neo-Gothic castles in South Tyrol. Imperial knight Moritz von Leon , presumably an illegitimate son of Joseph, inherited the castle in 1867 and owned it until 1893.

In 1870, Empress Elisabeth of Austria chose the castle for her spa stay in Merano. She occupied the top floor of the palace together with her two daughters Gisela and Marie Valerie . Just a few weeks after her arrival, Austrian newspapers were reporting on Marie Valerie's recovery, which made Merano famous as a spa town. In 1889 Elisabeth visited the castle again.

Moritz von Leon, the Empress's host, eventually had to gradually sell all of his possessions, including Trauttmansdorff Castle. Successors were the Gyulay from 1892/1893 to 1896. After bankruptcy, the property went to Friedrich von Deuster from Kitzingen . He increased the size of the castle, planted orchards and gardens and gave the castle a new shine. The heyday of the castle ended with the beginning of World War I , as South Tyrol was right on the front line.

After the First World War, the owner was expropriated by the fascist regime , the castle fell to the Opera Nazionale per i Combattenti , an aid fund for Italian soldiers , and has been called Castel di Nova ever since . During the Second World War , the castle was used by the Wehrmacht .

After the end of the war the palace was empty and the Opera Nazionale per i Combattenti was looking for a buyer. When it was dissolved in 1977 and the castle had still not been sold, it fell to the South Tyrolean provincial administration, which finally found a use for it in 1990: the South Tyrolean provincial museum for tourism, the Touriseum, was opened inside and the botanical garden was built around it created. Four zones were created on the twelve hectare area, which flow into one another: forest gardens, sun gardens, water and terrace gardens and the landscapes of South Tyrol. A special attraction is the Australian Wollemia ( Wollemia nobilis ), a specimen of a conifer species that was only discovered in 1994 and is extremely rare in nature . The Gardens of Trauttmannsdorff Castle were the first botanical garden in Italy in 2006 to exhibit this type of plant.

The gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle were named the most beautiful garden in Italy in 2005 .

literature

  • Edited by the Südtiroler Landesmuseum für Kultur- und Landesgeschichte Schloss Tirol: Trauttmansdorff, history (s) of a castle, Meran, 2001
  • Bernhard (von) Mazegger: Chronicle of Mais, its noble seats, castles and churches , Verlag F. Pleticha, Obermais-Meran 1905, p. 243 f.
  • Josef Rohrer: Trauttmansdorff: Empress Elisabeth's winter residence (=  castles . Volume 15 ). Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-7954-3199-0 .
  • Oswald Trapp : Tiroler Burgenbuch. Volume II: Burgrave Office . Publishing house Athesia, Bozen 1980, pp. 181–187.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Bernhard von Mazegger: Chronicle of Mais, his noble seats, castles and churches , p. 243 f.

Coordinates: 46 ° 39 ′ 38.8 ″  N , 11 ° 11 ′ 7 ″  E