Castle Stetteneck

Castle Stetteneck was a castle on the Col da Pincan, a hill in front of the Pitschberg near St. Ulrich in Gröden (South Tyrol).

The castle became known through the legend Das Schloss am Abgrund told by Karl Felix Wolff. Until a few years ago it was believed that the castle had stood on the considerably higher Balest rising behind it (likewise a foothill of the Pitschberg), but no remains of walls were ever found there.

In 2000 the remains of the castle were discovered through test drillings by Herwig Prinoth and Stefan Planker of the Museum Ladin (part of the South Tyrolean Provincial Museums). The site was determined on the basis of the exact interpretation of the description of the castle by Marx Sittich von Wolkenstein in the 17th century. Further excavations brought to light large parts of the foundations of the main tower, the protective walls and a gate with a Romanesque arch. Further finds were the iron tip of a crossbow bolt, a gaming piece of Gröden sandstone, the shards of very finely blown glasses and oil lamps as well as pottery shards.

The castle goes back to the 13th century; the time of construction probably lies before the year 1256. The complex was about 40 m long and had a curtain wall 1.8 m thick. It remains unclear so far whether the castle was destroyed by human hand or by a natural disaster.

The knight Gebhard von Stetteneck, the first Stettenecker documented in records, was a judge in Gufidaun and a ministerialis of the Prince-Bishopric of Brixen. He is first mentioned in a document on 13 May 1256 and descends from the line of the Kastelruth lords of Hauenstein. On that day the Bishop of Brixen Bruno von Kirchberg, a nephew of Meinhard II, and his ministeriales, among whom "Gebehardus de Stetenekke" is named, met on the Ritten.

Machine-translated from “Burg Stetteneck” on the German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Castle Stetteneck ranks #7,017 of 8,134 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #479 of the 487 mapped in Italy. Founded c. 1250, it is older than 69% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 861 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. 7 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Innsbruck, 80 km away. It is one of the 22 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of South Tyrol. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in German) ↗