Betnava Castle
Encyclopedia

Betnava Mansion is a manorhouse located near the city of Maribor
Maribor
Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia with 157,947 inhabitants . Maribor is also the largest and the capital city of Slovenian region Lower Styria and the seat of the Municipality of Maribor....

 in northern Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

.

A structure on the site is first mentioned in 1319, under the name Wintenaw. By the 16th century, it had grown into a fortified and moated renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 manor.

It passed through the hands of numerous owners, including the noble families of Herberstein, Khiessl, Auersperg
Auersperg
Auersperg may refer to:* Principality of Auersperg, estates held by the princely Austrian family of Auersperg* Palais Auersperg, a large baroque palace in Vienna, build for the princely Auersperg family- Family members :...

, Ursini-Rosenberg, Szekely, Brandis in von der Dur. During their tenure, the counts Herberstein transformed it into a Protestant way-station, complete with chapel and cemetery. In 1863, Betnava became the summer residence of the
bishops of Maribor and Lavant, having already been leased by the see for several decades.

In 1784, the mansion was rebuilt in late-baroque Florentine style, after the fashion of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 at the time. The west wing contains a chapel dedicated to the Holy Cross, while other notable features include a carved staircase leading to the main hall, itself decorated with late-baroque trompe l'oeil
Trompe l'oeil
Trompe-l'œil, which can also be spelled without the hyphen in English as trompe l'oeil, is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.-History in painting:Although the phrase has its origin in...

ceiling frescoes painted by an unknown artist c. 1780.

The main facade faces a 19th-century English country park.

The mansion's current owner is the archbishpric of Maribor, which was in 2011 cited by the Agency for the Protection of Cultural Heritage for failure to properly maintain the site and safeguard structures uncovered in an archeological dig.

Sources

  • http://www.betnava.org/
  • http://www.delo.si/clanek/141729 Delo, 25 Feb 2011
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK