Category: European Castles and Palaces
The magnificent Throne Room (Sala del Trono) was the very last to be completed in 1845, nearly a century since construction of the palace itself commenced (1751), during the reign of King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies at the Reggia di Caserta (Royal Palace of Caserta), Campania in southern Italy.
It measures 40m long and is located on the Royal Floor carved out under the direction of architect Gaetano Genovese in the final stages, with the fresco on the vault furnished by Gennaro Maldarelli, on the occasion of the Congress of Science, held in Naples that final year (1845).
The massive Royal Palace of Caserta (Reggia di Caserta in Italian) is situated in Caserta, capital of Campania in southern Italy, and makes the largest of its kind to have been constructed during the 18th century across Europe, the swansong of Baroque as it has been dubbed.
It further shapes the largest former royal residence as it served as the main quarters of the Kings of Naples, formally the Kingdom of Sicily at the time, that were part of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon (France).
Construction of the palace started in 1751 under Dutch-Italian architect Luigi Vanvitelli on account of King Charles VII of Naples, who nonetheless never got to live there as he left to become King Charles III of Spain in 1759, and was only partially completed for the latter’s third son and heir Ferdinand IV of Naples.
It was largely modelled on its counterpart of the Versailles (France) intended to serve as both a royal court and administrative centre while placed in a location well-protected from a potential seaborne invasion as well as away from ever trouble-brewing Naples, with barracks of troops even accommodated within the palace.
The project took decades to complete and well beyond Vanvitelli’s own lifetime (died 1773), taken up by his son Carlo and then other architects in his wake, whose envisaging of the palace was never entirely fulfilled.
Today’s edifice bears a rectangular shape of a massive 247 x 190m in dimensions that comprises four sides interconnected by two orthogonal arms while it boasts no less than 1200 rooms, 56 staircases, 1026 fireplaces allocated between five storeys as well as a sizeable library and a theatre patterned on Naples’s historic Teatro San Carlo.
Out in the grounds, a picturesque large Baroque park stretches over around 11 acres beyond the back side of the palace, featuring a botanical English garden in the upper section, lining a long alley of fountains and cascades such as the Fountain of Diana and Actaeon or the Fountain of Venus and Adonis either side.
The palace made a filming location as the set for the Naboo Palace of Theed City in the movie “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” in 1998.
Fairytale-esque Schloss Neuschwanstein (Neuschwanstein Castle), nestled on the north fringes of the Bavarian Alps, shapes a trademark of Germany and is without a doubt one of the most famed and photographed castles worldwide.
The Romanesque Revival edifice perches on a rugged hill over Hohenschwangau (west/northwest), a former village integrated into the municipality of Schwangau nowadays, in the region of Swabia in southern Bavaria on the border with Austria (south).
Its name translates as ‘New Swan Stone/Rock’ and surfaced on account of the original medieval Schwanstein Castle that lay below which was obtained in ruins by Maximilian II, King of Bavaria, to raise his neo-Gothic palace of Schloss Hohenschwangau in place by means of summer residence, virtually completed in 1837.
His eldest son and heir King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845 – 1886) spent much of his childhood there and was fond of the location so when he came to power in 1864 he opted to commission a new palace himself as a retreat from the constraints of public life and affairs, as well as in honour of renowned classical composer Richard Wagner whom he admired greatly.
On the rugged hill overlooking his father’s summer palace stood a further two ruined medieval castles, Vorderhohenschwangau and Hinterhohenschwangau, that Ludwig would often visit as a child on excursions so picked this spot for his own resort.
Construction of the new schloss, drafted by stage engineer Christian Jank in order to bear a flair of opera and the middle ages, eventually commenced in September 1869 under architect Eduard Riedel but the project had to take many twists and turns on the way on account of either the configuration of the location or Ludwig’s own boundless ambition.
Eventually, the Bavarian king was able to move in the yet unfinished Palas only in 1884, with Julius Hofmann assigned as a third architect in charge following a ten-year stint by Georg von Dollmann, and could invite his mother Marie on the occasion of her 60th birthday a year on with exterior works still in progress.
To his credit, Ludwig funded his large project all these long years out of his own fortune and finances as well as sizeable loans rather than draw on public Bavarian funds. Even as many as 300 craftsmen and workers would be occupied at the same time on the spot many times drawing deep into the night at the light of oil lamps.
Unfortunately, he never lived to see the completion of his masterpiece as he was taken under custody, deposed, and died along with his doctor under mysterious circumstances in mid June 1886 while the schloss itself was opened to the public just weeks later at the order of Prince Regent Luitpolt.
The current name of the castle, Neuschwanstein, came along only after the death of Ludwig who employed himself that of Neuhohenschwangau Schloss thereto during his reign and later life.
The Hall of the Singers
Decorated with themes from Lohengrin, Tannhäuser and Parzival, the captivating Hall of the Singers shapes the largest room across the entire Palas as it measures no less than a good 27 x 10m (89 x 33 ft) occupying the entire fourth floor, above the king’s lodgings, of the eastern wing.
In essence, the room was never meant for large banquets or music performances but rather as an accolade to the knights and legends of Ludwig’s beloved era of the Middle Ages, a favourite project of his.
The eye-catching Kasteel de Haar (De Haar Castle) is located outside the village of Haarzuilens near Utrecht, at the heart of the country, and shapes the largest castle across the Netherlands.
Its name comes from the de Haar family that received the original castle in place and the encompassing lands as fiefdom in 1391 AD, when the oldest record thereof surfaces.
Yet, it passed to the Van Zuylen family in 1449 following the marriage of Josyna van de Haar and Dirk van Zuylen but was largely burned down and destroyed during hostilities with the city of Utrecht in 1482.
As it appears, the castle was largely rebuilt by the mid 16th century but gradually fell into misuse and ruin following the death of Johan van Zuylen van de Haar without an heir in 1641.
The complex was restored to its nowadays neo-gothic style within roughly 20 years, between 1892 and 1912, as Étienne van Zuylen van Nyevelt inherited it in 1890 and the family of his wife Baroness Hélène de Rothschild financed the entire project under the guidance of prominent Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers.
It contains no less than 200 rooms and 30 bathrooms while it is nestled within a large park designed by Hendrik Copijn that features many waterworks and a formal garden reminiscent of the French equivalent of the Versailles.
Schloss Drachenburg is a villa fashioned as a palace and sits on Drachenfels (hill) at the town of Königswinter, south of Bonn in North Rhine-Westphalia (western Germany).
Drachenfels means ‘Dragon’s Rock’ and Drachenburg follows as ‘Dragon’s Castle’ since, according to the legend, it was on this hill that legendary hero Siegfried (or Sigurðr in Norse) slain the dragon Fafnir, a name that appears in Old Norse sources.
The edifice was commissioned by banker-cum-entrepreneur Stephan von Sarter who worked his way through the ranks to rack up a fortune and eventually laid claim on nobility as a baron in 1881.
Architects Bernhard Tüshaus and Leo von Abbema were initially employed as construction commenced in 1882 but von Sarter shifted horses midstream, apparently falling out with them, in favour of Paris-based Wilhelm Hoffman to be completed two years later (1884).
Following von Sarter’s death in 1902, his nephew Jacob Hubert Biesenbach envisaged the property as a potential tourist attraction to buy out all shares among the legatees of the baron’s will; yet, he didn’t enjoy much success and handed it over to Egbert von Simon (1910) who did but was killed in action during World War I.
After shifting hands and functions over decades, even becoming a school of Adolph Hitler’s in 1940, the schloss fell out of use and into decline in the late 1950s before it would up in the hands of the State of North-Rhine in the late 1980s undergoing lengthy substantial refurbishment, following up on earlier work by interim owner Paul Spinat.
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Although translated in English as such, the word ‘castle’ doesn’t quite render German ‘schloss,’ or ‘Schloß,’ properly as the latter carries a sense closer to French ‘château,’ indicating a palace or manor house that may be fortified or not.
It is not a castle as such that is.
Breaking through History 