Forschungsstätte für Frühromantik und Novalis-Museum, Schloss Oberwiederstedt, Renaissance château museum in Arnstein, Germany
Forschungsstätte für Frühromantik und Novalis-Museum, Schloss Oberwiederstedt is a three-winged Renaissance castle in Arnstein, Saxony-Anhalt, that now functions as both a research center and a museum. Its rooms hold permanent exhibitions on the early Romantic movement and on the poet Novalis.
The site traces back to a medieval monastery and was rebuilt as a Renaissance structure by the Hardenberg family in the late 17th century. Novalis was born here in 1772, which eventually gave the place a new purpose as a center for Romantic studies.
The castle was the birthplace of Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg, the poet who wrote under the name Novalis. Visitors today can walk through rooms that connect directly to the world that shaped his writing and his thinking.
The castle sits in Arnstein and is most comfortably reached by car, as public transport connections to the area are limited. Checking current opening times before you go is a good idea, since guided tours run at set times and not all day.
When the building lost its heritage protection status in 1987, it came close to being torn down before local people stepped in with over 20,000 hours of volunteer work to save it. Without that effort, the birthplace of Novalis would no longer exist today.
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