Valtice Castle is the former seat of the Liechtenstein family in Valtice in the South Moravian Region, administered by the National Heritage Institute.
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Valtice Castle stands in the town of Valtice in the South Moravian Region. It grew out of an original fortified seat documented before 1193 and belonged to the House of Liechtenstein for almost six hundred years. Today it is administered by the National Heritage Institute as a state chateau.[1]
Valtice and its affiliation
Valtice, in German Feldsberg, was part of Lower Austria until the end of the First World War. It was attached to the Czechoslovak Republic by the peace treaty concluded on 10 September 1919 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The treaty took effect on 9 August 1920, and Czechoslovak authority took over Valtice on 31 July 1920.[1]
Medieval castle
The first written mention of Valtice, then spelled Veldesperch, dates from 10 January 1193. Emperor Henry VI then confirmed by charter in Regensburg its exchange between Bishop Wolfger of Passau and Wichard of Seefeld. A fortified structure had stood here earlier, probably with earth and timber ramparts and possibly with a masonry residential core. The Seefelds were among the leading ministeriales of the Austrian dukes and hereditarily held the office of chief steward.[1]
Wichard's son Kadold apparently rebuilt the castle in a late Romanesque form, probably equipped it with a polygonal tower and made it a venue for knightly tournaments. This is inferred from the fact that the minnesinger Ulrich von Liechtenstein writes of a tournament at Valtice in the first half of the thirteenth century. The last male descendant of the Seefelds was Albero of Feldsberg, a companion of Přemysl Otakar II.[1]
A Minorite monastery was founded in front of the town's south-western gate; it was destroyed during the Hussite Wars, later restored by Franciscans at the initiative of John of Capistrano, and badly damaged in 1529 by a Turkish raid. It was abandoned during the Reformation and gradually dismantled. A convent of the Brothers of Mercy played an important role in the following period.[1]
The Liechtensteins and the rebuildings
At the beginning of the fourteenth century Valtice belonged to the Rauhensteins and the Kuenrings, who sold their share to the Pottendorfs. Between 1387 and 1391 the Liechtensteins united the estate and held it until its confiscation in 1945.[1] Renewal and prosperity were brought by Hartman I of Liechtenstein (1506–1540). A strong impulse for the development of the chateau was the loss of the family property at Mikulov in 1560. The castle was followed by a four-wing Renaissance building with an arcaded loggia, whose appearance is known only from a few drawings. Part of the structure survives in the foundations of the south-western wing, where the mixed masonry reaches a thickness of about two and a half metres.[1]
Charles I of Liechtenstein (born 1569, ruled 1595–1627) went on fortifying the residence, apparently because of the Turkish threat. In 1599 he converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, became the emperor's Grand Master of the Court and later Bohemian viceroy. In 1608 he received the title of prince and in 1614 the title of Duke of Opava. After the Battle of White Mountain he considerably extended the family's possessions. Until his death an extensive rebuilding of the chateau went on, in which the imperial architect Giovanni Battista Carlone and Giovanni Mario Filippi took part in the 1620s.[1]