Kácov Castle, Baroque castle in Kácov, Czech Republic.
Kácov Castle is a baroque château in the town of Kácov, built on the site of a mid-15th-century fortress. Duchess Anna Maria Franziska of Tuscany had her court architect Václav Špaček rebuild it in the 18th century as a North Italian-style noble residence. Much of the older Gothic-Renaissance structure survives within the baroque shell, and original Renaissance sgraffito lies beneath the baroque facade. A 60-metre connecting corridor links the château with the parish Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.
A fortress from the mid-15th century stood here until Benigna Kateřina of Lobkovice bought it in 1635 and had it rebuilt as a one-storey baroque castle with a stone ground floor and a wooden upper floor. In 1726 Duchess Anna Maria Franziska of Tuscany bought the ruinous building and had court architect Václav Špaček rebuild it over six years as a North Italian baroque residence. The state took it in 1918, a 2003 fire damaged the upper part, and reconstruction has run since 2018.
The castle church is the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, linked to the château by a working 60-metre connecting corridor. The complex also includes a farmyard (poplužní dvůr). After reconstruction the castle is to serve local communities and associations and open as a museum with exhibition spaces and guided tours.
The castle stands in the centre of Kácov, with the parish Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and the farmyard in the same complex, linked to the church by a 60-metre corridor. A guided tour route was built by volunteers and local associations, but full opening awaits the completion of the reconstruction begun in 2018.
Under the baroque facade, original Renaissance sgraffito has survived, and the layout with a raised central hall lit by windows in the roof lantern most resembled a 17th-century monastery convent. A castle chapel walled up in the 1950s during conversion to flats was rediscovered in 2012.
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