Wiesenau Castle

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Wiesenau Castle

Wiesenau Castle is located in the town of Wiesenau of the same name on the right bank of the Lavant in the municipality of Bad St. Leonhard in Carinthia.

history

The Renaissance building was built in 1579 by the Siegmund Pain trade . With his son, the family died out impoverished in 1652. From 1648 to 1778 the property was owned by the barons of Siegersdorf-Kirchheimegg.

In 1814, the director of the Wolfsberg white lead factory, Johann Soellner, bought the castle and made it the meeting place of the “Wiesenauer Kreis” , which was associated with Immanuel Kant , Friedrich Schiller and other intellectuals of the time. The members of this circle discussed current issues of the time and corresponded with famous scientists, poets and philosophers. A particularly frequent guest at Schloss Wiesenau was the imperial court astronomer Tobias Bürg (1766-1834), who was an internationally recognized capacity. When the Paris National Institute announced a prize for the most precise calculation of the lunar orbit in 1799, Bürg won the day alongside the Frenchman Alexis Bouvard . Bürg had evaluated data from around 3,000 astronomical observations and developed a complex theory of motion. In the last years of his life, Bürg withdrew completely to Wiesenau.

In 1847 the castle came to the Count Henckel von Donnersmarck , and in 1923 to the Hespa domain. It has been owned by RZ Holzindustrie GmbH since 2007.

description

The hopeless, three-storey complex is built over an almost square floor plan. The castle is crowned by a high hipped roof with a ridge turret. Of its four corner towers, three are placed across the corner. On the south façade, a round-arched, chamfered stone portal and three coupled Renaissance windows (biforic windows), the eastern one a copy, can be seen. A tile with the coat of arms of Sigmund Pain from 1579 is walled into the southwest tower.

In the hall there is a small collection of Roman grave monuments that were uncovered not far from the castle. They come from a settlement that is likely to have been associated with gold mining in nearby Kliening, which was also operated in Roman times.

literature

  • Dehio manual. The art monuments of Austria. Carinthia . Anton Schroll, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-7031-0712-X , p. 1068.
  • Wilhelm Deuer: "Castles and palaces in Carinthia". Verlag Johannes Heyn, Klagenfurt 2008, ISBN 978-3-7084-0307-6 , pp. 258 f.
  • Georg Clam Martinic: Burgen & Schlösser in Österreich , 1991 ISBN 3-85001-679-X

Web links

Coordinates: 46 ° 56 ′ 45.1 ″  N , 14 ° 48 ′ 45.4 ″  E