Zámek Bučovice
Castle · Czechia
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Zámek Bučovice is a Renaissance building dominating the town centre and is open to the public.
Jan Šembera z Boskovic, one of the richest and best-educated nobles in Moravia, commissioned Bučovice from 1575, hiring the Italian builder Pietro Gabri to work from plans by Jacopo Strada, an art historian who had managed the imperial art collections for three Habsburg emperors. Inside, themed halls run from a Hall of the Senses to an Imperial Room stuccoed by Hans Mont, Rudolf II's own court sculptor. After the estate passed by marriage to the Liechtenstein family, Maximilian of Liechtenstein added the courtyard's Mannerist fountain between 1635 and 1637, sculpted by Peter Materna. The chateau withstood a Swedish siege in 1645, during the Thirty Years' War. After 1681 it stopped being a residence, running the Liechtenstein estate's accounts from 1720 onward, before beginning its current life as a state-run museum.
What you see
A four-winged Renaissance palazzo, its courtyard wrapped on three sides by tiers of slender arcades and centred on a tall Mannerist fountain topped with dragon heads and a statue of Dionysus.
Practical
Open for guided tours seasonally, April to October, with a small café in the courtyard.
chateaurenaissancearchitecture
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