Pardubice castle

In possession of the Oaks and the Oaks of Pardubice

According to archaeological data, already at the end of the XIII century on the site of the present castle was a fortress that served as a pans residence. The first owner of the Pardubice pane and castle, whose name is preserved in documentary sources of the beginning of the XIV century , was Puta from Fridlant (mentioned in 1318–1319), the son of Ginek from Duba , who held a high position at the court of the last kings from the house of Przemyslovici . Obviously, at this time a water fort was built on the site of the castle. Between 1325 and 1330, the sons of Puta from Friedlant Ginek-Gaiman and Ginek-Crg from Oaks between 1325 and 1330 exchanged the castle of Pardubice with pans for Vizmburk Castle. Arnost from Gostinje (died in 1342) became the new Pardubice pan , thus establishing the clan of Panovs from Pardubice , during which the castle was substantially rebuilt in the 14th century ^{[2] [3] [4]} .

The eldest son Arnost from Gostiny, Arnost from Pardubice , chose a spiritual career, becoming the first archbishop of Prague in 1344, the second son also chose church service, therefore the third son Smil from Pardubice inherited the Pardubice papacy (died around 1358), and after his death the fourth , Villem "Flash" from Pardubice (died about 1387). After the death of Willem, a long lawsuit ensued, caused by the debts of the lords from Pardubice, and as a result, the Pardubice papacy and castle were transferred to the close king of Wenceslas IV , the Silesian nobleman Hanusz from Milheim. After the death of Ganush in 1405, his heirs sold the castle and the gentry. The name of the buyer is not preserved in written sources ^{[5] [6] [7]} .

15th Century Castle

At the beginning of the Hussite wars, the Pardubice castle and the gentry belonged to Victorin Bocek of Kunstat and Podebrad , one of the associates of the Hussite hetman Jan ижižka . After the death of Quiz in 1427, the castle and the gentry were inherited by his young son Jiří , whose guardians were unable to keep the Pardubice castle, and he was captured by the Moravian nobleman Jan Glavac from Mitrov. The latter sold the Pardubice pane and castle to the Hussian Hetman Divis Borzek from Miletin in 1436 (he died in 1438). Shortly after the end of the wars, the castle was rebuilt and surrounded by a new stone wall with corner towers and loopholes (fragments of two towers have survived to this day) ^{[4] [8] [9]} .

After the death of Divisz Borzhek, the castle passed under the control of his brother Vanek from Miletin (died after 1454), and after the death of Vanek - to his son Yirzhik Pardubsky from Miletin. The latter is so mired in debt that he was implicated in fraudulent fraud, for which he was threatened by a royal court in 1490. In an effort to get rid of his debts, Jiřík in 1491 sold the pan together with the castle of the Moravian pan Vilém II of Pernštejn , who decided to make the Pardubice castle a clan nest of the aristocratic Pernštejn family in Bohemia . Since Wilhelm from Pernshtein occupied a high position at the court of King Vladislav II and was one of the most influential nobles of the Czech Republic, his residence in the Pardubice Castle very soon became an important socio-political center of the Czech Kingdom. Villem II completely rebuilt the castle in the architecture of the late Gothic style , turning it into a four-winged two-story palace with a closed courtyard. Powerful defensive structures were erected around the palace and the courtyard with outbuildings: a rectangular rampart system with powerful artillery bastions in the corners, surrounded by walls with gun loopholes ^{[4] [10] [11] [12] [13]} .

Castle in the 16th – 18th centuries

In 1507, Viljem II from Pernstein divided his vast Moravian-Czech possessions between his two sons, as a result of which the Pardubice papacy with the castle passed Wojtech I from Pernstein (died in 1534), and after his death - to his brother Jan IV Bogaty (died in 1548). The sons of Willem began the restructuring of the castle in the Renaissance style , the first stage of which was completed, apparently, in the first half of the 40s of the XVI century. As a result, the interior of the castle acquired a renaissance look, partially preserved to this day. In the 1920s and 1940s, one floor was built in the castle ^{[4] [12] [14]} .

In 1560, burdened with debt, Yaroslav from Pernshtein , the eldest son of John IV the Rich, sold the Pardubice papacy and castle to Archduke Maximilian . After the castle became a royal property, it lost the importance of the pans residence and served as the residence of the royal administrator. The kings of the Czech Republic periodically stayed in the castle with their court. The second stage of the renaissance restructuring of the castle was carried out at the direction of the royal financial chamber (“comoros”) in 1574-1579 under the leadership of the court architect Ulrico Aostalli de Sala . The castle, among other things, acquired a graffiti facade, the risonite pediment over the castle entrance was redone, a staircase was added to the north wing, and a spacious hall was created on the third floor of this wing. In this form, the castle was captured in 1602 on an engraving by Jan Wilenberg ^{[4] [15] [16]} .

The restoration of the city of Pardubice after the Thirty Years War required the royal administration to create new profitable enterprises. In this regard, among other things, in 1650 a brewery was built in Pardubice Castle, and in 1663 a paper mill, tannery and a tannery working with water wheels were built in the northern part of the castle moat (these enterprises operated in the castle until 1723, after which they were transferred to the village of Semin). In 1723-1726, under the leadership of Frantisek Maximilian Kanka , a modification of the castle in the Baroque style was carried out, which did not lead to significant changes in the structure of the castle complex. The hall on the first floor and the second floor of the north wing were redone. During the reconstruction of the castle’s interior in the 18th century, the murals of the knight’s halls were damaged; they were not restored until the 1920s after the castle was bought by the Museum Society of Pardubice ^{[4] [15] [17] [18]} .

Castle in the 19th — 21st Centuries

By the end of the 18th century, the castle fell into some desolation, its area was used as a warehouse of the Pardubice textile manufactory, and the living quarters were transferred by the state for the residence of the retired officers of the royal army, which adversely affected the interior of the castle. In 1778, the bastions of castle fortifications disarmed by that time were turned into gardens, and in 1836 the castle officially lost the status and importance of a military fortress, after which the castle ramparts were planted with fruit trees and vineyards. In the second half of the XIX century, the castle passed into private ownership, and in 1920 it was bought by the Pardubice Museum Society, which rented part of the castle from 1892. After that, a gradual restoration of the castle began. In 1953, the castle was nationalized by the Czechoslovak government, the restoration ceased, the simplest maintenance requirements ceased to be observed, as a result of which the ceiling collapsed on the third floor of the castle in the 70s of the XX century. Only after that the general reconstruction of the castle began, which was carried out extremely slowly until 1994, but then the restoration work was noticeably intensified. Finally, in 1997 the restored castle was reopened to the public and tourists. Since 2001, the Pardubice Castle is owned by the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic and is used to house the East Bohemian Museum of Pardubice. The castle barbican remained in the republican ownership, it houses the Pardubice regional branch of the National Institute of Monuments of the Czech Republic . In one of the former economic buildings of the castle is the East Bohemian Gallery Pardubice ^{[18] [4] [19] [20]} .

In 2010, the castle was included in the list of national cultural monuments of the Czech Republic ^[1] . In 2013, the ceremonial reopening of the castle of the Three Kings took place in the eastern wing of the castle, built by Willem II of Pernshtein at the beginning of the 16th century and closed in 1979 ^[21] .

It is not known for certain how the Pardubice castle looked before the perestroika carried out by Willem II of Pernstein . It was established that the current basements of the northern wing of the castle and the main castle tower before the reconstruction made up the first floor. As a result of strengthening the castle’s defense, shortly after the end of the Hussite Wars , four rounded corner towers were erected, two of which are partially preserved to this day, and the other two are known due to archaeological research. Probably, at the very beginning of the 16th century, this defensive system ceased to exist during the construction of massive earthen ramparts with powerful angular bastions (their outlines have survived to this day), on which artillery pieces were placed. The height of the ramparts reached the second floor of the castle, from the outside they were protected by a wall with gun loopholes. There was a wide moat in front of the outer wall, which in case of danger quickly filled with water thanks to the complex water supply system around the city. New fortifications of the Pardubice castle were constructed using the most advanced late Gothic fortification methods. The medieval castle itself was completely rebuilt into a representative four-winged two-story palace with a closed courtyard in the late Gothic architectural style. With some changes, the structure of the castle complex created during Wilhelm II has survived to the present day. This architectural object, combining the elements of an impregnable fortress and a comfortable aristocratic residence, to such a degree of preservation has no analogues in Central Europe ^{[4] [13] [12]} .

You can get to the castle from the city only through one entrance: on the main wide street of the city from the side of the square, a fortress wall adjoins the castle, continuing to the picturesque triangular barbican (the so-called “Pršigradeka” - Czech. Příhrádek ), originally associated with a long wooden castle by the bridge. Only after passing the second gate of Przigradek, guarded by a square tower, you can go inside the castle fortifications. A year after the great flood of 1804, instead of a wooden bridge, an earthen dam of sediments with a stone bridge in the middle was built. Two statues of saints - Ian of Nepomuk and Francis of Paola ^{[4] [12]} were erected over the channel through which water flowed into the castle moat;

The surviving entrance castle portal , carved in 1529-1538 and installed in 1541 (dates are indicated on the portal itself), is connected to the external courtyard by a reliefly decorated stone bridge, thrown over a small inner moat (the construction of the bridge was completed in 1543). Knights' halls with frescoes in the Renaissance style that belong to the oldest Renaissance wall paintings in the Czech Republic deserve special attention in the interior of the castle. Of particular value are the two coffered ceilings preserved in their original form, painted in the Renaissance style ^{[4] [12]} .

The largest chivalrous hall of the castle is the Maushaus ( Czech Mázhaus ), on the wall of which a part of the early Renaissance fresco “ Law and Grace ”, which dates from the early 40s of the 16th century, has been preserved. This image reflected the utraquist views of the owners of the castle from the Pernstein family and was created under the influence of the works of Lucas Cranach the Elder . The Gothic-Renaissance portals of the work of an unknown master have also been preserved in the House. Fragments of illusory architectural paintings around portals and window niches, as well as on columns in the corners of the hall, have been preserved in the Voitekhov Hall. The main painting of the Vojtech Hall is the wall image “ Samson and Delilah ”, dated 1532 and recognized as the oldest renaissance wall mural in the Czech Republic that has survived to this day. Another surviving fresco is an image of a naked woman, entitled "Fortuna volubilis" (" Fortune is changeable"). The hall is richly decorated with images of the coat of arms of Wojtech I from Pernstein . In the southwestern corner of the Wojtech Hall there is a bay window with the late Gothic vault of the work of the royal mason Hans Spies , erected even under Willem II of Pernshtein. The third knight's hall - Kolonny - is distinguished by the magnificent coffered ceiling in the late Gothic style that has been preserved to this day, created between 1520 and 1530. Of particular value is the Renaissance ceiling painting in the form of a floral ornament. The second similar ceiling was preserved in one of the halls of the third floor of the eastern wing of the castle ^{[12] [18]} .

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• Historie zámku (Czech) . Vcm.cz. Východočeské muzeum v Pardubicích. Date of treatment December 8, 2014. Archived March 17, 2016.
• Rytířské sály (Czech) . Vcm.cz. Východočeské muzeum v Pardubicích. Date of treatment June 10, 2015. Archived March 17, 2016.
• Šebek, František. Historie Pardubic (Czech) . Pardubický svět . K2P sro. Date of treatment June 10, 2015. Archived March 13, 2016.
• Zámecká kaple (Czech) . Vcm.cz. Východočeské muzeum v Pardubicích. Date of treatment June 10, 2015. Archived March 17, 2016.
• Zámecké valy (Czech) . Vcm.cz. Východočeské muzeum v Pardubicích. Date of treatment June 10, 2015. Archived March 17, 2016.