Konopiště Castle: A Gothic Fortress and Historic Residence in Czechia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- High
- Country
- Czechia
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Bohemia
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page12 sections
History
Konopiště Castle is a medieval fortress and historic residence in Czechia, near Benešov, founded in the late thirteenth century in the Gothic period. Its origin is usually placed around 1294 and traditionally attributed to Tobiáš of Benešov, bishop of Prague and an adviser to King Wenceslaus II, although both the founder and the precise date remain uncertain. Built on a promontory above the Castle Pond, it became the seat of several powerful families and was repeatedly transformed from a fortified stronghold into an aristocratic residence.
Foundation and the Šternberk Lords
The first known owners were Beneš and Dobeš of the Benešovici family, who held the castle in 1318. After the family died out in 1327, Konopiště passed to the Šternberks, who retained it until 1590. During the fifteenth-century Hussite Wars, conflicts in Bohemia involving religious reformers, the Catholic Church, and the monarchy, Petr of Šternberk fought against the Hussites and died at the Battle of Vyšehrad in 1420.
Zdeněk Konopišťský of Šternberk became lord of Konopiště in 1440. He first supported King George of Poděbrady, the fifteenth-century Bohemian ruler, but later joined the Green Mountain League, an alliance opposed to the king. Royal forces besieged Konopiště in 1467 and 1468. The eighteen-month siege was a prolonged campaign of positional warfare, in which the attackers sought to pressure the fortress with artillery and cut its supply lines. The garrison surrendered in December 1468 because its food had run out. Zdeněk Kostka of Postupice commanded the royal forces, while Zdeněk of Šternberk’s descendants regained the castle in 1479.
Early Modern Ownership and Baroque Transformation
Arkleb of Kunovice owned Konopiště from 1590 to 1603. On 18 October 1603, Dorota Hodějovská of Harasov purchased the heavily indebted estate. The Protestant Hodějovský family made the castle the main seat of its domains. Bernard Hodějovský took part in the anti-Habsburg revolt of 1618 to 1620, an uprising by Bohemian estates against Habsburg rule. Frederick V of the Palatinate, later called the Winter King because of his brief reign in Bohemia, stayed at Konopiště on one occasion.
After the revolt was defeated, the castle and estate passed to supporters of the emperor. Albrecht of Wallenstein bought Konopiště in 1623 for 65,000 Rhenish gulden, after which Pavel Michna of Vacínov acquired it. The estate later passed through the Vrtba and Lobkowitz families and other hands. Swedish forces captured and plundered the castle in 1648, contributing to its decline. A rebellion by local serfs is also said to have seized it in 1657.
The Vrtba family held Konopiště from 1716 and undertook a major Baroque rebuilding. Baroque architecture, an eighteenth-century style associated with elaborate ornament and dramatic composition, altered the fortress into a more regular residence. František Maxmilián Kaňka designed a new gate in 1725 for Jan Josef of Vrtba, while the workshop of Matyáš Bernard Braun provided its sculpture. Lazar Widman created the decoration for the dining-room fireplaces and the chapel altars.
The upper levels of four towers were destroyed in 1746, and another tower was completely demolished. František Julius Lux probably painted the monumental ceiling fresco in the dining room, also called Lobkowitz Hall, between 1749 and 1752 for František Václav of Vrtba. Its theatrical Rococo composition, a light and richly ornamented eighteenth-century style, shows the Olympian gods led by Zeus, the chief god of ancient Greek mythology, and represents the four times of day. An afternoon scene presents Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and festivity, among fauns, bacchants, maenads, and other revelers. The painting is regarded as a major example of Rococo art in Bohemia.
František Ferdinand d’Este
Konopiště underwent a Gothic Revival rebuilding before 1872 during the Lobkowitz period. Gothic Revival, also known as Neo-Gothic, was a nineteenth-century movement that revived medieval architectural forms. This work added polygonal galleries with keyhole-shaped loopholes to the tops of the corner towers. František Ferdinand d’Este therefore acquired a castle already reshaped in a Romantic historicist manner when he bought the estate from the Křimice branch of the Lobkowitz family in 1887.
From 1889 to 1894, the architect Josef Mocker carried out a second Gothic Revival rebuilding for František Ferdinand, while František Schmoranz designed the interiors. The alterations did not consistently follow the earlier Neo-Gothic work or respect all surviving Gothic and late Gothic structures. A library wing designed by Walcher of Moltheim was added in the early twentieth century.
František Ferdinand was an Austrian archduke and, from 1896, heir to the Austro-Hungarian imperial throne. With his wife Sophie Chotek, later known as Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, he made Konopiště his principal and final residence. Their morganatic marriage gave Sophie and their descendants a dynastic status different from that of the ruling Habsburg-Lorraine line. František Ferdinand introduced running water, electricity, a hydraulic lift, and other modern technical improvements. The residence also included a mechanical shooting range and hunting corridors decorated with trophies.
František Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914. The killing became the immediate pretext for the First World War. After the war, Habsburg property was confiscated under a special law passed in 1921, and Konopiště with its park became state property in Czechoslovakia and later in the Czech Republic.
War, Collections, and State Protection
During the Second World War, Konopiště housed the headquarters of SS units under SS-Brigadeführer A. Karasche. The SS was Nazi Germany’s paramilitary and security organization, and these units formed part of the SS Totenkopf armoured division. From 1943 to 1945, the castle also stored works of art taken as war booty. Many artworks and collection objects were removed at the end of the war. Most had returned by 1946, while some remained in Prague.
The castle reopened after liberation in 1945. Its interiors and arrangement largely retain the form created during František Ferdinand’s final rebuilding, including much of the furniture associated with his occupation of the residence. Konopiště is state-owned and administered by the National Heritage Institute. The complex is protected as a national cultural monument. In December 2000, Sophie Gudenus, a granddaughter of František Ferdinand, filed a restitution claim for the Hohenberg family concerning the castle, its real estate and inventory, forests, and brewery. The claim also involved about 6,070 hectares of forest, with the Hohenbergs’ position within the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty central to the legal issue.
Remains
Medieval Fortress and Defences
Konopiště occupies a promontory above the Castle Pond. Its early Gothic fortress followed the model of a French castle and had a rectangular plan divided by a transverse wall into two courtyards. The raised eastern part contained two parallel palace wings along the northern and southern perimeter walls, while the western part held the entrance gate.
The medieval defence included at least seven towers. Two massive round bergfrieds, the principal defensive towers of a medieval castle, protected the shorter eastern and western ends. Four smaller round corner towers projected beyond the walls so defenders could fire along their outer faces, and another tower stood at the centre of the northern front. Only the eastern bergfried still reaches its full height. Narrow stair turrets projected from the round towers, including two on the northern tower, a distinctive feature of the fortress.
An outer defensive area, or zwinger, surrounded the castle between its main wall and the external defences. A substantial ditch, faced with masonry on both sides, completed this system. The oldest stonework includes pointed paired windows from the late thirteenth century. These were later reused in the corner projection of the former first courtyard and in the perimeter wall of the eastern bergfried.
Gothic and Renaissance Interiors
Late Gothic work survives in the cell vaults of the northern palace in the inner castle. A cell vault is a late medieval ceiling formed from repeated geometric compartments or star-like patterns. Two first-floor chambers retain Gothic-Renaissance windows. On the second floor, the chapel has four bays of cell vaulting, and the adjoining oratory has a vault of the same type. Their pattern of four-pointed stars joined by a network belongs to the second decade of the sixteenth century.
Renaissance relief panels and a tombstone are set into the perimeter walls of the palace wings around the present second courtyard. Historical images show that the chapel once had late Gothic curtain-shaped windows, while its current windows belong to a later phase.
Baroque Alterations
The Baroque rebuilding changed the castle’s exterior and circulation. The entrance moved from the west side to the east, the wings and towers were brought to more uniform heights, and the earlier irregular outline was reduced. A stone bridge replaced the drawbridge, and a new entrance was cut through the wall near the eastern tower.
The Baroque gate designed by Kaňka in 1725 retains sculptural decoration from Braun’s workshop. Inside, Widman’s work survives on the dining-room fireplaces and the chapel altars. The ceiling fresco in Lobkowitz Hall presents an elaborate mythological programme, including Zeus and the scene of Bacchus with figures associated with woodland nature and ecstatic celebration.
Collections and Modern Residence
The collections include weapons and armour, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque works of art and craftsmanship, and numerous representations of Saint George. The armoury occupies the large hall on the third floor of the northern palace in the former inner castle. It contains particularly notable sixteenth-century Italian armour and firearms from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, with southern European, western European, and Oriental examples.
The hunting-trophy collection contains about 4,400 specimens associated with František Ferdinand’s hunting career. Water supply, electricity, and a hydraulic lift in the central wing belong to the technical modernization carried out during his residence. The library wing added in the early twentieth century forms part of the later arrangement of the castle.
Park and Religious Features
The naturalistic landscape park created after 1887 covers more than 225 hectares. Its principal creators included the Viennese garden architect Mösmer and Karel Rozínek, head gardener of Prague’s Royal Game Preserve. The grounds contain terraces, a rose garden, Italian Renaissance statues, greenhouses, and the Saint George Museum, whose holdings include numerous works depicting the saint.
The Way of the Cross was built in 1775 by Countess O’Kelly after a peasant uprising. Fourteen stone pillars form a circle around a stone Lourdes grotto containing the Crucified Christ, with a small chapel at the top of the circuit. The grotto and cross occupy the site of an earlier Calvary. František Ferdinand added them in commemoration of his visit to Lourdes in 1905.
Siege Earthworks
Three groups of archaeological earthworks lie 600 to 700 metres from the castle. They preserve the remains of medieval siege camps from 1467 and 1468. Their arrangement reflects a long positional siege designed to threaten the fortress with gunfire and, above all, to prevent supplies from reaching the garrison. Together with the surviving castle defences, the earthworks preserve the physical setting of the conflict that ended with the garrison’s surrender in December 1468.
