Kroměříž Castle, also known as Zámek Kroměříž or Arcibiskupský zámek in Czech, and Schloss Kremsier in German, is located in Kroměříž, Czech Republic. It was the main home of the bishops and, since 1777, the archbishops of Olomouc. In 1998, UNESCO added the castle and its gardens to the World Heritage Site list because the gardens and castle are exceptionally well-preserved and have outstanding Baroque designs.
History
The town was controlled by bishops starting in the 13th century. During the Hussite wars, bishops lost control of the town and did not regain it until the 1470s. This led Bishop Stanislav I Thurzo to replace the castle with a more comfortable home in 1500. The building was designed in the late Gothic style, with some Renaissance details. During the Thirty Years' War, the Swedish army attacked and destroyed the castle in 1643.
In 1664, a bishop from the powerful Lichtenstein-Kastelkorn family hired architect Filiberto Lucchese to renovate the palace in a Baroque style. The most famous part of Lucchese’s work in Kroměříž is the Pleasure Garden near the castle. After Lucchese died in 1666, Giovanni Pietro Tencalla finished the garden and rebuilt the palace in a style similar to the Turinese school he was part of.
In March 1752, a major fire destroyed the castle. Bishop Hamilton then asked two important artists, Franz Anton Maulbertsch and Josef Stern, to paint the palace’s halls. The palace also holds an art collection, often called the second best in the country, which includes Titian’s last mythological painting, The Flaying of Marsyas. Most of the collection was bought by Bishop Karel in Cologne in 1673. The palace also has a special musical archive and a library with 33,000 books.
Landscape architecture and architecture
The castle and its surrounding area were considered for the World Heritage List in 1998. The nomination document states, "the castle is a good but not exceptional example of a type of home that nobles or royalty lived in, which has survived in many places across Europe. The Pleasure Garden, however, is a very rare and mostly complete example of a Baroque garden." The Baroque landscapes and palaces in Bohemia and Moravia were strongly influenced by the Italian Baroque style. However, the design of the Pleasure Garden, which was built on mostly flat land, also shows the influence of the French Formal Baroque style. Two Italian architects created the garden: Filiberto Luchese (1607–1666) and later Giovanni Pietro Tencalla (1629–1702).
The Baroque Pleasure Garden, also called the Lust Garden, is located away from the palace, as seen in modern aerial photographs. Engravings made in 1691 by Georg Matthaeus Vischer show a fully enclosed garden divided into two parts: one side with ornamental flower beds and the other side to the south with orchards and decorative plants.
In addition to the formal Baroque flower beds, there is also a less formal 19th-century English garden near the palace. This garden suffered damage during floods in 1997.
In popular culture
The inside of the palace was used a lot by Miloš Forman as a substitute for Vienna's Hofburg Imperial Palace while making the movie Amadeus (1984), which is about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart never visited Kroměříž, although some of his musical works are kept in the castle's music archive. Other movies and TV shows were also filmed (at least partly) in the palace and its gardens.