- Type
- Palace / château
- Built
- 1696 · 17th century
- Location
- South Moravian, Czechia
- Style
- baroque architecture
- Architect
- Domenico Martinelli
- Visiting
- probably – Wikidata lists it as a museum or gives tickets, opening hours or visitor numbers; check before you go
- Coordinates
- 49.1547°, 16.8746°
History
A commandery of the Teutonic Order stood here in the 13th century, and in the late 16th century the Kaunitz family built a four-winged Renaissance castle with arcades on the older foundations. From 1696 Dominik Andreas Kaunitz raised a new U-shaped Baroque residence designed by Domenico Martinelli, with frescoes in the west wing by Andrea Lanzani and stucco by Santino Bussi. After the founder died in 1705, Ignazio Valmaggini continued the work, but the palace was only completed under Chancellor Wenzel Anton Kaunitz, for whom Josef Pichler painted the oval hall and the chapel by 1769. In December 1805, after the Battle of Austerlitz, an armistice between Austria and France was signed in the Historic Hall. When the Kaunitz line died out in 1919 the palace passed to the Pálffy family; it was nationalised after the Second World War, now belongs to the town and has been a National Cultural Monument since 2008.
What to see
The tour of the first floor includes the Hall of Ancestors with its ceiling fresco of the gods on Olympus, the oval Historic Hall with its unusual acoustics, portraits from the former Kaunitz gallery and the oratory of the Holy Cross chapel, whose altar features angels sculpted by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. A separate multimedia exhibition covers the Battle of Austerlitz. The palace is open almost all year, and it is surrounded by a 15-hectare park, returned in the 1970s to its Baroque layout with pools and mythological statues.
Wikipedia article Wikidata Q1418278
Popularity: articles about this site in 10 Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia language editions and others).