Czech Republic · 14th century
Bruntál Castle (Schloss Freudenthal) lies in Bruntál in the Jeseníky Mountains, Czech Republic.
The castle was built in the Renaissance style after 1560 by the lords of Würben, a Silesian-Moravian knightly family, on the site of a Gothic castle complex going back to the 14th century. Because of its participation in the Estates' revolt of 1618, this branch of the Würben family lost its property after the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. The castle was confiscated and handed over to the Teutonic Order, which had it rebuilt in the Baroque style in the years 1766 to 1769.
From the period before the rebuilding, the arcades in the courtyard, the clock tower and some other parts of the building have survived. Further rebuilding in 1838 to 1840 and at the beginning of the 20th century concerned the interior fittings and the castle park.
26 halls on the first floor are furnished with valuable furniture from the end of the 18th and the 19th centuries. Noteworthy are the castle gallery with works by Italian, Dutch and German masters from the 16th to the 18th centuries as well as the hunting-weapons chamber and the castle library. On the ground floor, besides the chapel, are the remains of the former horse stables and the oldest halls of the castle, which are used today for castle concerts.
In 1939 the Teutonic Order was expropriated by the National Socialists and the castle was seized. In 1946 it passed into the ownership of what was then Czechoslovakia.
Machine-translated from “Schloss Bruntál” on the German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Bruntál Castle ranks #4,368 of 9,035 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #124 of the 243 mapped in Czech Republic. Founded c. 1350, it is older than 54% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 757 atlas entries founded in the 14th century. 2 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Olomouc, 47 km away. See how Czech Republic compares in the castle statistics.
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