Castle Of Slavkov - Austerlitz
Building history
Slavkov ranks among the oldest well-preserved manors in Moravia. In the first half of the 13th century, a Teutonic Knights Commandery was built in the place of the present Baroque castle. Slavkov is first mentioned to be in their possession in 1237. Parts of the residential building and circular stair tower of the commandery are preserved under the northern tract of the Baroque castle and under one part of the castle courtyard. By the end of the 16th century, probably during the reign of Ulrich III of Kaunitz, a new Renaissance castle was erected on the older foundations with a four-winged groundplan, arcades and a huge prismatic tower.
The impulse for Baroque reconstruction of the Kaunitz Renaissance residence in Slavkov was laid by Dominik Ulrich Kaunitz at the end of the 17th century. This task of building a representative residence of the family in place of the inconvenient Renaissance building was entrusted to the Italian architect Domenik Martinelli of Lucca. Martinelli introduced his concept of the Baroque castle in the so-called Danube Baroque style in the 1680s. Besides the actual Baroque castle, he also included a modification and reconstruction of a greater part of the town with a new parish church. The actual building of the castle was designed in the shape of the letter U. Originally, the courtyard should have been ended by an entrance gate in the place of the present ground floor semi-circular stalls.
The construction of the castle started in the last years of the 17th century under the supervision of local bricklayer foremen and on infrequent inspections of Martinelli. The central – western wing with massively extended corners and haunches of both side wings was erected first. The western moat was arched over in its middle by a bridge with several stair levels. The retreating central forefront was emphasized in the first floor by a balcony opening to the garden from the central room of the 1st floor of the western wing. Martinelli’s typical interior solution consisted of two separate staircases and a rectangular vestibule segmented by huge ground floor columns. The designers of interior decorations were also Italian masters. The frescoes were painted by Andrea Lanzani who closely cooperated with the stucco master, Santino Bussi. Sculptures in the castle as well as in the park were done by Giovanni Giuliani.
Dominik Ulrich, the initiator of the Baroque reconstruction of Slavkov castle, died in 1705. Only the western wing was finished then. Its successor, and from 1720 also the Moravian family heir, was his son, Maxmilian Ulrich of Kaunitz, imperial count of Rietberg, and from 1720 also the head of the Moravian government. After 1720 he also focused on the completion of the castle reconstruction. He found a successor of Martinelli's architectural layouts, the Italian architect Ignacio Valmaggini. The need of a spacious social hall and a pretentious frontispiece from the honorary courtyard necessitated some significant changes in the original plans, particularly in the courtyard part of the western wing with arched underpass. The efforts to increase the representative character of the courtyard lead to the expansion of the ends of the manor wings and the digging out of their courtyard sides. Thus, a large entrance area was created, which was delimited on the other side by similar arches as in the stalls. From the beginning of the 1730s, the completion of this work was given to the charge of a competent designer and architect, Václav Petruzzi.
Maxmilián Ulrich of Kaunitz did not live long enough to see the final appearance of the castle. Only his son, Václav Antonín, the Count Kaunitz-Rietberg, the most significant member of the whole family line and from 1764 also the imperial count, state minister and chancellor of Her Majesty Empress Maria Theresa, of the Emperors Leopold II, Joseph II and Francis II, had the credit of the completion of the entire castle complex. Shortly after he took up the family property after his father's death, the whole main building, including the southern wing, was built. The exteriors of the newly built parts were adapted to Martinelli's western façade, but inside the Classicist elements were dominant. Previous profuseness of the stucco and fresco decorations was replaced by linear segmentation of large areas by fine decorating.
Similarly decorated were the ceilings of the oblong ground floor vestibule, the barrel vault in the corridors of the first floor of both wings and the ceiling and the walls of the northern staircase. In terms of the spatial layout, maximum attention was paid to the central oval social hall, the illusionary decoration of which was carried out by the Viennese court fresco creator, Josef Pichler, in 1767. Count Kaunitz also finished the modification of the former dining hall to the so-called Ancestors’ Hall with larger-than-life paintings of his parent, grandparents and his wife. The last work in the castle was completed with the painted decoration of the castle’s St Cross Chapel, also carried out by Pichler in 1769.
