Schrattenberg castle ruins

The high princely Schwarzenberg castle Schrattenberg around 1830, lith. Institution JF Kaiser, Graz

The Schrattenberg castle ruins are located in Styria , a few kilometers west of Scheifling in their municipality.

history

A simple fortification, probably built in the first half of the 12th century and first mentioned in 1144, was owned by a Rantolf in 1162 , then and still in the 12th century by a Pernhard and a Chadilhoch by Schrattenberg. However, the sex appears to have died out by the end of the 12th century. The property then came to the Liechtensteiners , who appointed members of the Teufenbach family as burgraves .

At the end of the 14th century, Schrattenberg came to the Grym family, who sold the property to the St. Lambrecht monastery. The fortification remained in the possession of the monastery until 1451, when it finally went to Ernst Pranckher . After changing owners several times - for example, it is documented that the Protestant Jöbstl family sold it to a Carl Jocher - Viktor Jakob Freiherr von Prandegg acquired the estate in 1680 and built a baroque palace on it until around 1685 , which was one of the most beautiful in Styria : a four-wing building with it four corner towers, an additional gate tower above the south wing and a central arcade courtyard with Tuscan columns, surrounded by a defensive wall with four corner pavilions and a moat. Von Prandegg bequeathed the whole thing, including the debts arising from the magnificent building, to his daughters, the married Eva Rosina Countess Steinpeiss and Maria Viktoria Freiin Unverzagt in 1694 . Ten years later the over-indebted property was sold to Prince Ferdinand von Schwarzenberg .

After the area was temporarily used as a hotel guesthouse and as a military hospital on the occasion of the First World War, a fire during renovation work on August 28, 1915 destroyed the castle and its important art treasures so much that the owners (to this day the Schwarzenberg family) did not restore them considered more.

The four garden pavilions at the corners of the surrounding wall and some outbuildings have been preserved. They are now used to a modest extent: Heimo Wallner and the artists' association HOTELPUPIK organize international artist encounters every summer in the premises of the former management house of the Schwarzenberg'schen Meierei , which also made restoration work possible for the buildings concerned.