Geography

Kromeriz

In the middle of the 13 century the bishop Bruno of Schaumburg built his fortified residence on older foundations inside the city walls. In the course of centuries, the furter bishops of Olomouc adapted it to their foremost residence. In the 16 century,  Stanislav Turzo had it rebuilt to a four-wing building with courtyard in Renaissance style. The Thirty Years´ War hit Kromeriz severely. Bishop Charles of Liechtenstein (Kastelkorn) revived its glory  by starting the construction of a baroque castle according to the project of F. Lucches and G.  P. Tencallo in 1686. After the fire in town in 1752 the castle got new completion (mouldings, roof timbers and roofing). The changes hit also the interiors, to the decorating of which the most important masters of 18 century were invited. Filling up the moat in 1832 did the castle building an extensive harm. In 1848 – 1849 the castle became the centre of attention of the whole monarchy: the 1. Constituent Austrian Imperial Diet was shifted there, namely at the suggestion of F. Palacky. The building was seriously endangered by the fire in 1945 but it did not spread, fortunatelly. The building remained property of the bishops of Olomouc until 1949. The castle has got Renaissance ground plan. Only the dominant of prismatic tower with a baroque dome protrudes from the matter. On the ground floor  of the garden section with stuccos of B. Fontane, paintings of A. Pagani and  mosaics there are the halls of sala terrena. The most beautiful rooms are on the first floor. An imposing staircase leads  to the Hunting Hall with trophies and billiards. From there you can go to the Rose Hall, through the Tsarist Hall to the Consultative Hall that is decorated with portraits of the leading bishops. Then the Throne Room follows that, together with the dining room, includes an impressive picture gallery . The Parliamentary Hall with beautiful stucco decoration by M. A. Kellner and a ceiling painting with the motifs from ancient mythology by F. Adolf of Freenthal is the culmination of the tour in the first floor.  The Rococo ceiling vault painting by F. A. Maulbertsch in Feudal Hall with the topic from history of episcopal feudal system is more valuable, though. At the same time, J. Stern painted the rooms of the library. He also took part, together with the sculptor F. Hiernel, in the decoration of the castle chapel. All the rooms on the first floor excel at valuable, very well preserved movables, expensive  upholstery, gilding, at fineness of the stucco and carving as well as noteworthy chandeliers. On the second floor of the castle the gallery is placed. The base of it is the Liechtenstein collection from the second half of 17 century, the pictures of which originate from the same sources as the works in Parisian Louvre; that is why it includes unique creations of world importance (for example Apollo and Marsyas by Tizian or the paintings by L. Cranach, J. Bassano, D. Teniers, J. Breughel senior, A. van Dyck, J. K. Liska and F. A. Maulbertsch ).

The gardens and the castle at Kromeriz were put in the UNESCO List  of World Cultural Heritage in 1998.

Podzamecka Garden

Originally it was a kitchen and flower garden. Since 15 century its face and purpose changed.  In 17 century it was rebuilt to a baroque garden and in 19 century to a stylish landscape park with the area of  64 ha using the carried out regulation of the Morava river and the drainage of marshy floodplain forest. It ranks among the eminent European landscape parks owing to wide utilization of streamlets and ponds, botanical structure of meadows and growths with romantic buildings and sculptural decoration. After 1945, the Spot of Living Nature was built and after 1970 a part of the garden was adapted for use as  school sports grounds.

Flower Garden called Libosad

It emerged as a part of building activities of bishop Charles II Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn on infertile and marshy land outside the city walls in the 17 century. Realization of the project of so called   "Libosad" is the work of the authors of the castle architecture F.Lucches a G. P.Tencallo. Later on, two buildings of tropical and cold greenhouses, residential and administrative buildings were added to its side part. They closed the Yard of Honour between them. The entrance was stressed by the entrance porch with gilded archiepiscopal coat of arms. The Yard of Honour is equipped by garden furniture made in archiepiscopal ironworks in Frydlant of the favourite material in those days  – cast iron. Vases with archiepiscopal coat of arms and the benches are in the style of the second Rococo and look very well and up-to-date in the garden setting.  The Flower Garden was founded in 1665 on the ground plan of an elongated rectangle 300 m x 485 m. The main entrance changes into an unusually long, monumental gallery , so called colonnade. Its 244 m of length make it a very dominant architectural element. The ground plan of  Libosad was interweaved with a complicated water system that fed small ponds, fountains, a small lake near the aviary, spouts and a complicated machinery of so called water jokes in the interior of the central rotunda. The axis of Libosad goes from the main entrance through the rotunda to skittle alley equipped by water jokes as well. On the sides of the main axis there were labyriths and small orthogonal ponds with carp and trout fry. Then the main axis goes between two hillocks, so called Strawberry Rises, that became a favourite element of composition in those days. Their beginnings are known already from ancient gardens where they were artificially piled up. And already there they had arbours on the top as it originally was also in Kromeriz. The main axis then changed to the circumferential road leading to the entertaining components of the garden.