Urach Castle
The Urach Castle is located in the town of Bad Urach in the district of Reutlingen , Tübingen .
Today's castle area consists of a gate tower, professor's building, goalkeeper's building and the actual castle, a rectangular, gable-roof-roofed building from around 1400 with a later western extension with a hipped roof, another, tower-like rectangular extension and the large south tower.
In the castle is the so-called Golden Hall , an important paneled state room from the late Renaissance in Germany. The room has a flat roof and is lit on three sides. It is divided by columns with Corinthian capitals. Walls and columns are richly gilded, hence the room got its name.
history
As early as the middle of the 11th century, a moated castle was built in the valley in connection with the construction of Hohenurach Castle . It served the Counts of Urach as the city seat. From a military point of view, it had the task of monitoring the valley and blocking it if necessary. In 1264, the castle came with the rule of the Counts of Württemberg .
As an extension of the old moated castle, today's "Residenzschloss" was built in 1400, actually a hall building in the area of the outer castle, which mainly contained large, elongated rooms on the ground floor and first floor. Count Eberhard III. and his wife Antonia Visconti from Milan . From the beginning, additional living rooms were accommodated on the second floor and in the attic, of which only remnants have been preserved. Together with other buildings, a castle-like area was created on the edge of the old town, which could also accommodate a larger court.
When the state was divided in 1442, Ludwig I of Württemberg chose Urach as his residence and moved into the city palace. In 1474, Eberhard I von Württemberg had the extension extensively modernized on the occasion of his wedding to Barbara Gonzaga von Mantua . At that time, the court room (Dürnitz) on the ground floor was provided with an elaborate four-aisled vault as the dining room for the entire court society. On the first floor, the hall received a monumental painting with the ancestral coat of arms and the motto of the lord of the castle.
After the reunification of the county of Württemberg in 1482, Urach lost its importance as the seat of government. The castle was subsequently only used as a hunting lodge, a retreat for the ducal family, alternative quarters or for festivities. Nonetheless, around 1600 it received at least a partial new interior in rich late Renaissance forms.
In 1546 the castle was occupied by Spanish troops from the Duke of Alba during the Schmalkaldic War and by imperial troops in the Thirty Years' War in 1634.
1663/64 took place under Duke Eberhard III. from Württemberg extensive renovation work.
At the end of the 18th century, the core of the complex, the old moated castle, was torn down under Duke Carl Eugen and the Swan Lake was drained with its ruins.
In the 1960s, the castle was extensively renovated according to the principles of conservation at the time. Many components inside were replaced by modern steel and concrete structures and valuable historical building fabric was disposed of without documentation. Photos from this conversion phase are shown in the museum.
Todays use
Urach Castle is open for tours. It is one of the state's own monuments and is looked after by the State Palaces and Gardens of Baden-Württemberg .
literature
- Klaus Gereon Beuckers (ed.): City, castle and residence of Urach. New research. Regensburg 2014 (with fundamentally new information).
- Henrik Bäringhausen, Helmut-Eberhard Paulus, Susanne Rott, Wolfgang Wiese (eds.): Raumkunst - kunstraum. Interiors as works of art - discovered in palaces, castles and monasteries in Germany , Schnell & Steiner Verlag, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7954-1732-5 .
- Günter Schmitt : Castle Guide Swabian Alb, Volume 4 - Alb Mitte-Nord: Hiking and discovering between Aichelberg and Reutlingen . Biberacher Verlagsdruckerei, Biberach an der Riß 1991, ISBN 3-924489-58-0 , pp. 197-208.
- Handbook of Historic Places, Volume VI, ISBN 3-520-27602-X .
Individual evidence
- ^ Leaflet from the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Finance in cooperation with the Stuttgart regional finance office in 1988
- ^ The new dating based on the felling dates of the timber according to: Tilmann Marstaller: Residence made of stone and wood. Castle, monastery and city of Urach in the light of historical building research . In: Klaus Gereon Beuckers (ed.): City, Castle and Residence Urach. New research. Regensburg 2014, pp. 137–161, here pp. 142–144.
- ^ Julia Lauxmann: Antonia Visconti, Countess in Württemberg. In: Peter Rückert (Ed.): Antonia Visconti († 1405) - a treasure in the Württemberg house. Accompanying book and catalog for the exhibition of the Baden-Württemberg State Archive - Main State Archive Stuttgart. Stuttgart 2005, pp. 52-55.
- ↑ www.schloss-urach.de
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 29 ′ 34 " N , 9 ° 23 ′ 52" E