Vizovice Castle, Baroque château in Vizovice, Czech Republic.
Vizovice Castle is a French-style château displaying Baroque, Rococo, Empire, and Biedermeier elements across its decorated interior spaces and grand halls. It houses an extensive collection of 16th to 19th-century paintings by Dutch and Czech masters, along with valuable porcelain and oriental objects.
Vizovice Castle was built in stages from 1747 to 1778 on the site of a former Cistercian monastery founded in 1261, which had been converted into a Renaissance château in 1570. Bishop Hermann Hannibal von Blümegen bought the estate in 1746 and commissioned architect František Antonín Grimm; the U-shaped two-storey building follows French Baroque models. The Stillfried family held it from 1838 until 1945.
The castle's picture gallery was built by Petr Alcantara of Blümegen, who lived here permanently and died without heirs in 1813, leaving the estate to his wife Marie Františka, born Stillfried. Her nephew Baron Filip Stillfried of Ratenice inherited in 1838, made Vizovice his permanent seat, and all his children were born here.
The château stands in the centre of Vizovice, about 15 km from Zlín, and is owned by the state, administered by the National Heritage Institute. It is open to the public; visits run through the furnished interiors. The building was designated a national cultural monument in 2001.
The castle stands on the site of the Smilheim monastery, founded in 1261; its convent buildings were probably incorporated into a Renaissance castle completed in 1570, which was then demolished in 1747 for the Baroque rebuild. After 1945 the castle was designated a museum of Baroque residential culture.
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