Ernstbrunn Palace

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Ernstbrunn Palace
Keep and hall

Keep and hall

Conservation status: Received or received substantial parts
Place: Ernstbrunn
Geographical location 48 ° 32 '25.8 "  N , 16 ° 20' 53"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 32 '25.8 "  N , 16 ° 20' 53"  E
Height: 354  m above sea level A.
Ernstbrunn Palace (Lower Austria)
Ernstbrunn Palace
Ernstbrunn Palace

The Ernstbrunn Castle is a castle in Dörfles in the market town Ernstbrunn Lower Austria. It is located in a forest northwest of the center of Ernstbrunn. The castle has been in the possession of the Reuss princes since the 19th century , and they still live there today.

history

Around 1180 a Heinrich de Ernstbrunne is mentioned as a witness in a Klosterneuburg document. Ebran von Ernstbrunn was beheaded in 1254 because he was in a dispute with Bertold von Ernstbrunn against King Ottokar . In 1313 Ulrich von Maissau inherited the rule of Konrad I von Schaunberg . The Gneusen family took up the loan at this time. In 1430 Ernstbrunn came to the sovereign who pledged it to the Doss family until 1480. The lords of Ebersdorf came into possession of the rule from 1499 (until they died out in 1556) through exchange . Leonhard von Harrach sold this to Joachim von Sinzendorf in 1592 . He was a special envoy at the Sultan's court in Istanbul and had 13 children. His son Lorenz founded the Ernstbrunn line of his family. After 1654 Rudolf Graf von Sinzendorf had extensive renovations and new buildings carried out in the baroque style. Imperial Prince Prosper von Sinzendorf had the castle expanded into a palace from the fourth quarter of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century. He employed Benedict Henrici as an architect and sculptor. Jacobus Wanderl was active inside. With Prosper the Sinzendorfer died out in 1822.

A protracted dispute over inheritance followed, which ended with Prince Heinrich LXIV. von Reuss-Köstritz took over the rule.

During the occupation, the castle was under USIA administration and was heavily devastated and a large part of its inventory was robbed. According to the state treaty , the castle was returned to its original owner. It has been continuously restored by them.

Building description

The castle is an elongated building with four ascending courtyards on the northern slope of the Semmelberg above Dörfles . New groups of buildings were added to the medieval core castle on the northern rock spur through extensions in the late Renaissance, Baroque and Classicism periods. The core castle from the 12th and 13th centuries, which surrounds the innermost courtyard, lies on a limestone rock that is free on three sides and which slopes steeply towards the village of Dörfles. It forms an elongated octagon. The wall thickness of the Bering is up to three meters. It is reinforced in the southeast by the square keep. This originally only had three floors, but was opened in the 16th and 17th centuries. Century added another storey.

The front side of the castle is the 16-axis south front, which closes off the pre-castle from the outside. In the second courtyard there is a clock tower and a Protestant chapel (built around 1863), in the third courtyard a high castle, in the fourth courtyard a Catholic chapel, a knight's hall and a keep. As the coat of arms of Count Rudolf von Sinzendorf held by lions above the arched portal shows, the pre-castle was expanded in baroque style between 1672 and 1677 . However, the facade was redesigned in a classical style at the end of the 18th century . There is a baroque fountain in front of the gate.

A little further around the castle there are numerous outbuildings, including a mighty three-storey bulk box .

Castle garden

The garden was designed in the second half of the 17th century under Prosper von Sinzendorf as a baroque ornamental and landscape complex. In 1775 it was reworked by Prosper von Sinzendorf as a baroque-classical layout. The inventory has been partially preserved, such as the temple fountain (Neubrunn) , a Nikesäule ( peace or Victoria column , "Black Gretl"), an obelisk in honor of Field Marshal Gideon von Loudon , a monument to Chancellor Franz von Sarau , and others. These can still be found today, even if not on the original site. In particular, around 100 life-size original baroque stone figures were found in 1984/85 during earthworks not far from the bulk box. They are likely from around 1700, the original list is unclear.

In the 1860s, Prince Reuss converted the grounds into an English landscape park of around 60 hectares , and this picture shows it to this day, which is why it is also known as the Princely Reuss Castle Park . He was ordered with numerous solitary trees, some of which still form a valuable tree population today.

In 1975 the northern parts of the castle park were redesigned to the Ernstbrunn Wildlife Park , where the Wolf Science Center has also been located since 2001 . It was housed in the kitchen garden near the castle until its final completion .

The park is one of the most important garden architectural monuments in Austria and is mentioned in the Monument Protection Act ( No. 11 in the appendix to Section 1, Paragraph 12 of the DMSG ). It also belongs to the Leiserberge Nature Park ( NPK 7 , 45 km²), established in 1970, and the associated landscape protection area ( LSG 9 , 70 km²).

Castle library

Only between 1910 and 1945 was a library built, which at the end of the Second World War contained more than 40,000 volumes, most of which came from the family's own property. Since the castle was in the middle of the battle for several weeks at the end of the war and was subsequently under Soviet occupation (USIA administration) for 10 years, the library has largely been lost since then. In the course of the negotiations between the Republic of Austria and the Russian state about the return of former Austrian archives, which are stored as "booty files" in the "Special Archives" in Moscow, traces of the Ernstbrunn Archives emerged again in the 1990s. However, attempts at repatriation have so far failed.

Todays use

The castle is privately owned. There are always cultural events taking place, including the CON ANIMA chamber music festival. Then it is restricted to visit. The park is also only partially accessible; entry is required for the parts in the zoo.

Sometimes there is also film shooting.

literature

  • Dehio - Lower Austria north of the Danube. onA
  • Reichhalter, Kühtreiber: Castles - Weinviertel. 2005, ISBN 3-7079-0713-9 , pp. OA
  • R. Büttner, R. Madritsch: Castles and palaces from Bisamberg to Laa / Thaya. 1987, p. OA

Web links

Commons : Ernstbrunn Palace  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernstbrunn Palace on Old Walls , queried on October 29, 2010.
  2. ^ A b c Eva Berger: Historic Gardens of Austria: Gardens and parks from the Renaissance to around 1930 . tape 1 Lower Austria, Burgenland . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2002, ISBN 978-3-205-99352-0 , Ernstbrunn, Schloßpark , p. 185 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ Georg Clam Martinic: Castles & Palaces in Austria. 1996, ISBN 3-85001-679-1 .
  4. ↑ a b entry about Ernstbrunn on Burgen-Austria
  5. ↑ The wildlife park now extends over 40 ha (2015) beyond the boundaries of the Reuss Park.
  6. ↑ Reuss Castle Library vifabbi.de, as of April 1995, accessed on October 28, 2010.
  7. ↑ a b Ernstbrunn Palace. ernstbrunn.riskommunal.net, accessed November 25, 2015.