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50-828: The most important forerunner of the Renaissance in Saxony was the Electoral Saxon master builder Arnold von Westfalen (ca. 1425-1481), who created the Albrechtsburg Castle in Meissen in the transition from late Gothic to Renaissance. Transitional forms of building décor can also be found at Hartenfels Castle in Torgau , Wurzen Castle, Hinterglauchau Castle in Glauchau and Heynitz Castle. Decisive for

100-614: A fortress within their settlement area, situated on a rock high above the Elbe river. This castle, called Misnia after a nearby creek, became the nucleus of the town and from 965 the residence of the Margraves of Meissen , who in 1423 acquired the Electorate of Saxony . In 1423 Frederick I was appointed Elector of Saxony. His grandsons, Ernst and Albrecht , ruled over Saxony and Thuringia together from 1464 to 1485 and commissioned

150-432: A large tiled stove formerly placed at the north-east corner, in which the entire male court household, including the princes, was to meet twice a day for main meals. Between the two rooms there is a musician's gallery above the connecting door, which could serve both rooms as required. Around these two large rooms are grouped three independent apartments as living and office areas, each consisting of an oven-heated parlour as

200-591: A major work of the Saxon Renaissance. Later, however, the interior was rebuilt in baroque style after a fire and the outer facades were reworked in the neo-Renaissance style in the 19th century. The territory of Saxony did not yet include the margravates of Upper and Lower Lusatia , which belonged to the Lands of the Bohemian crown and only fell to Saxony in 1635. Saxony also reached further north into

250-509: A military base. In 1762, in consequence of the Seven Years' War , the interior of the castle was completely wrecked. When ownership of the property was taken over by the military treasury in 1784, the second major conversion of the Renaissance palace into a magazine was carried out. This involved a major change to the building structure. The Renaissance windows were replaced by small armoury windows. Inside, low armoury floors were built in

300-549: A multiply folded surface. Apart from the Staircase tower on the courtyard side, however, only one building, arranged in the central zone on the Elbe side, develops into a real tower; all other buildings are bound together again by the mighty roof. In the roof zone, however, the lucarnes, high-rectangular roof dormers resting on the eaves line, form a wreath of tower figures surrounding the building. The lucarne in its typical design as

350-408: A real showpiece, offering multiple views across the Elbe valley in various directions. In its position away from the hustle and bustle of the palace courtyard, it corresponds exactly to the advice of the influential Renaissance theorist Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) for the construction of such rooms. The ground plan of the second floor is repeated in essential aspects on the third floor above in

400-457: A simple design. From 1800, it was partly rebuilt into a miners' granary ( Bergmagazin ). During the Napoleonic occupation in 1813, the castle was used as a hospital for 1,500 wounded. With the transfer of legal ownership to the town of Freiberg in 1957, it served until 1979 as a granary. In 1973, a youth club opened in the basement. From 1980 to 1990, a heritage organization was based at

450-409: A tower with three free-standing sides above the Elbe valley. Above the elaborate and costly substructures of the basement floors, the architect has created rooms here that allow a panoramic view to three sides. The architecturally staged panoramic view itself was already valued in palace construction throughout Europe at that time. However, the multi-view "fan view" in Meissen differs fundamentally from

500-405: A window bay window originates from France, but it was only in isolated cases (e.g. in the castles of Baugé and Le Rivau) that it was used in such a systematic and consistent manner around 1470. Another momentous adaptation of French building culture in Meissen was the use of the lofty staircase tower, as it had been formulated as a type in 1365 with the - later demolished - Great Spiral Staircase in

550-681: Is located on the Schloßplatz ("Castle Square") on the edge of the town centre of Freiberg in the German state of Saxony . Its history is closely linked to the House of Wettin . After several conversions the castle is now a stately home with four wings comprising these buildings: the Langes Haus , Neues Haus , Kirchenflügel , Großer Turm und Schmales Haus ("Long House", "New House", "Church Wing", "Great Tower" and "Narrow House"). After

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600-903: The Fläming . At the beginning of the early Renaissance, the Wettin lands were fragmented. The Lutheran Reformation emanated from the Saxon Electorate, which was under Ernestine rule and had its centers of power in Wittenberg and Torgau, while the Reformation was not introduced until 1539 in the Albertine dominions adjoining to the south (mainly the Margravate of Meissen ). After the end of the Schmalkaldic War in 1547,

650-459: The electors of Saxony, Moritz and Augustus , were born at the castle. The construction of the new castle was begun in 1566 by master builder, Hans Irmisch, under the supervision of Rochus zu Lynar. Its completion in the Renaissance architectural style was finished in 1577. In Thirty Years' War , it formed part of the defensive system of the town of Freiberg, and was occasionally used as

700-695: The Dresden Baroque, which shaped an entire century and radiated far beyond national borders. The Renaissance gables of the Ortenburg Castle in Bautzen , which were not erected until 1698 according to plans by Martin Pötzsch, show how long the building traditions trained in the Renaissance continued to have an effect; gables in a similar, even baroque-looking transitional style were already attached to Althörnitz Castle around 1660. In addition to

750-658: The Ernestine electors. The Torgau Castle Hartenfels with its famous Wendelstein , which was significantly rebuilt by the middle of the 16th century, is one of the most important buildings of the early Renaissance in Germany. After the Wittenberg capitulation and the transition of Torgau to the Albertines, Elector Maurice initially continued the work on the castle. The permanent relocation of the residence to Dresden until

800-539: The Late Gothic period, the structure of the building forms already leads to the culture of the European Renaissance . The ground plan of Albrechtsburg Castle, which was already proportioned like a tower, was divided into individual tower figures; all the strips of the façade tend to be upright rectangular in format; in the effect of light and shade, the core building presents itself like a crystal with

850-559: The Lucerne zone. Here one can assume that the Electrice's flat with an internal staircase to the rooms of her entourage is located one floor higher in the roof. The extraordinarily complex construction task of Albrechtsburg Castle required the establishment and constant operation of a large workshop, which under Master Arnold and his closest students became a centre of architectural development and education with supra-regional charisma, as

900-587: The Margraviate of Meissen with the newly built castle and the later Thuringian district, his brother Ernst the remaining Thuringian areas and the Duchy of Saxony with Wittenberg, to which the electorate was bound.. Between 1495 and 1500, construction work was halted during the interior finishing work in the upper northern parts. It was not until 1521 that the son of Duke Albrecht, Duke Georg (1500-1539), these areas were completed by Jakob Heilmann. From this period are

950-662: The Saxon Renaissance with the typical features: Albrechtsburg The Albrechtsburg is a Late Gothic castle erected from 1471 till about 1495. It is located in the town centre of Meissen in the German state of Saxony . It is situated on a hill above the river Elbe , adjacent to the Meissen Cathedral . In 929 King Henry I of Germany subdued the Slavic Glomacze tribe at the Siege of Gana and built

1000-453: The Saxon expression of the Renaissance styles, there are in the different parts of Germany some other distribution areas with specific expressions of this style. These are: In other countries, there are also different regional characteristics. Characteristic are the typical triangular gables on the wall dormers and tower structures (in the early period also round gables), plus a dominance of

1050-599: The Upper Saxon Meissen area formed a politically consolidated area. The artistic and structural development was particularly encouraged by Elector Augustus, who ruled from 1553 until his death in 1586. His great interest in questions of construction and architecture is documented. His library contained many architectural pamphlets and model books of building elements. His main work is the enormous Augustusburg , built between 1568 and 1572. Nowhere else in Europe

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1100-467: The architectural style to spread in Saxony. The style rubbed off on private building activity in urban centers. Wealthy citizens began to copy the resulting magnificent buildings in Dresden and Meissen and erected houses with arched portals , facades with square oriels above the ground floor, often attached in pairs. Further domestic stylistic elements of the Renaissance can be found on the ornaments of

1150-473: The castle in 1710. Two years earlier Johann Friedrich Böttger and Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus had invented European porcelain. At first, Dresden was intended to be the manufactory, but Augustus the Strong chose the empty castle, isolated because of its location, because nowhere else would the secret of porcelain production have been so certain. On 6 June 1710, the porcelain manufactory began operations in

1200-533: The castle. In a return to its structural appearance in 1577, the facade of the New House was rebuilt in the Renaissance style under its direction. In 2004, ownership of the castle was given back to the town of Freiberg. Between 2005 and 2008 it was converted as the result of a Europe-wide competition under the direction of AFF Architects Berlin/Chemnitz. This saw the gutting of the Church Wing, in order to house

1250-509: The colors white and gray as well as consistently plastered buildings without natural stone décor. Buildings from the time of the Saxon Renaissance can be found today in almost all areas that belonged to the House of Wettin at the time of the Renaissance, i.e. today in several states of Germany as Saxony , Thuringia , Saxony-Anhalt (southern part) and Brandenburg (Lower Lusatia) as well as in adjacent foreign areas such as Poland and Bohemia. On

1300-503: The core building are followed by a low ground floor and two main floors open with unusually large so-called curtain arch windows. Another storey, which was also used by the nobility, is already located within the roof zone and is lit through the windows of the Lucerne row. The tower-like character of Meissen Castle, which is still so striking from all sides, is probably a well-calculated image of political significance. Albrechtsburg Castle

1350-461: The courtyard of the Louvre . The large main staircase to the south, which provides access to the upper floors used for stately purposes, is a masterpiece of stonemasonry with intricately curved steps winding up around an open eye in the centre. Its windows were originally open and allowed a variety of views between those walking on the stairs and spectators in the courtyard. However, the overall shape of

1400-629: The discovery of silver in Christiansdorf , Margrave Otto II of Meissen had a castle built in 1168 to protect the silver mines . On 31 July 1312 the castle is first mentioned in a record as a Hus ("house"). In later documents it is described as an arx , Castrum , flos and Burg . The Freiberg castle is first referred to as "Freudenstein" in 1525. After 1505 Duke Henry the Pious mainly resided in Freiberg. During his reign, his sons, later

1450-591: The elector was to have a small adjoining room on the valley side. The typological models for such a retreat room are the "estudes" or "cabinets" in French castles, or the studioli propagated by Italian humanists. A famous Italian example, almost contemporaneous, was installed between 1472 and 1476 in the Ducal Palace of Urbino . The small room of the Elector's apartment in Meissen is architecturally designed to be

1500-555: The end of the 16th century largely saved Hartenfels Castle from later stylistic transformations, such as those experienced by the Dresden Residence Castle , which was considerably enlarged from 1548 until 1556. The facades of the Dresden Palace were richly decorated with sgraffiti and Maurice's brother and successor, Elector Augustus , who reigned from 1553 until 1586, completed the construction, which became

1550-465: The former princely residence, which was to make the "white gold" world-famous. In the middle of the 19th century, the manufactory was moved to the newly built factory building and the castle stood empty again. Between 1864 and 1870, the old factory buildings were removed and the castle was rebuilt architecturally. The missing furniture was replaced by elaborate paintings on the late Gothic walls. The later well-known artist Alexander Linnemann from Frankfurt

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1600-592: The front doors and the window frames. The wooden ceilings are magnificently designed. The way in which most of the town houses of this time were designed can be traced back to the influence of Dresden. In addition to the buildings, altars and grave slabs have also become the subject of the changed design in Saxony. In cities such as Meissen , Pirna , Freiberg , Görlitz , Zwickau , Torgau and Wittenberg there are still today numerous Renaissance town houses. From 1656, Wolf Caspar von Klengel (1630–1691) became chief master builder (Oberlandbaumeister) in Saxony; under him

1650-485: The gallery in front of the Meissen staircase tower and the neighbouring section of the façade has no direct French model. A smaller stair tower is also located on the courtyard façade in the corner between the north and east wings. Inside Albrechtsburg Castle the master builder had to implement a highly complex spatial programme. Large areas of the first floor are taken up by two large halls. Both are generously windowed on several sides, have two naves and are vaulted like

1700-604: The late Renaissance forms were transforming themselves bit by bit into the new Baroque style. As a “prelude”, Johann Georg Starcke built the Dresden Palais in the Great Garden for John George II from 1678, based on models from the French and Italian early Baroque. John George's grandson Augustus II the Strong , who was impressed by his grandfather's opulent court festivals, pushed the new architectural style forward with unprecedented energy from 1694 and thereby created

1750-577: The loop ribbed vault in the style of Benedikt Ried, who worked in Prague, on the first floor of the north-eastern building and a fireplace in the room above. At that time the sculptor Christoph Walther I was also commissioned to create figural reliefs for the balustrades of the Great Staircase Tower, the frames of which show typical early Renaissance forms. The castle was christened "Albrechtsburg" in 1676 after one of its first lords. But it

1800-399: The main altar of the town church of Annaberg in 1519 and initiated the Renaissance in Saxony. The Saxon master builders used the Renaissance style from about 1530 and exported it to northern Germany ( Brandenburg , Mecklenburg ). After the Wettin possessions were divided into an Ernestine and an Albertine line in 1485, Torgau developed next to Wittenberg into the preferred residence of

1850-399: The main room and one or more subordinate chambers as sleeping and storage rooms. The most elaborate architectural design is that of the flat adjoining the banqueting hall (Hofstube) in the north-east. Its parlour and the unheated bed chamber above it, which can be reached directly via a wall staircase, take up the building, which is turned by 45 degrees from the main building line and rises like

1900-427: The master builder Arnold von Westfalen to build the first German palace on the site of the old margravial castle in 1471. Albrechtsburg Castle never actually became a centre of Wettin's court. While construction was still in progress, the builders agreed in 1485 on a division of their territory. The joint government of the two brothers was abolished and the land was divided into two parts. Albrecht received essentially

1950-472: The other hand, master builders of the Weser Renaissance carried out the conversion of the old monastery into Leitzkau Castle near Magdeburg , whose facades and gables have natural stone décor and fan tips. The most striking and preserved large buildings of this time were above all castles and town halls, which can still be found in large numbers in their original state. Selection of buildings of

2000-481: The other rooms on the floor. The centrally located hall to which the main entrance of the Great Staircase Tower leads was the large dancing hall of the palace, which was used occasionally. It was not heatable and in everyday life it fulfilled the function of a communication area between the surrounding staircases and rooms, including a chapel. In contrast, the North Hall was the banqueting hall (Hofstube), heated by

2050-743: The spread of the new architectural style, which originated in Italy and spread throughout Germany at the same time, was the Saxon ruling family of the Wettins , who had their own large buildings commissioned and, under Elector Maurice , also called Italian artists to Saxony. Well-known artists and builders who worked in Saxony were: Giovanni Maria Nosseni from Lugano , Hans von Dehn-Rothfelser, Benedetto Tola (* 1525 in Brescia /Italy; † 1572), Gabriel de Tola, Caspar Vogt von Wierandt, Hans Irmisch, Rochus zu Lynar , Carlo di Cesare del Palagio. Franz Maidburg erected

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2100-477: The view guides that were common in France or Italy at that time, where the optical reference to the surroundings was almost always formulated in the form of a directed uniform image. In the following period, such spatial formations were to become a characteristic feature of elaborate Central European palace construction in Wittenberg, Torgau, Neuburg a. d. Donau or Heidelberg, among others. The large northeast apartment

2150-516: Was Albrecht's son, Georg the Bearded , who first took possession of Albrechtsburg Castle as his residence. During the Thirty Years' War the castle was badly damaged. Since then it has stood empty. It was not until the beginning of the 18th century that Albrechtsburg Castle received more attention again, thanks to Augustus II the Strong , when he had the Meissen porcelain manufactory set up in

2200-518: Was also active in this process, e.g. in designing the new doors. At the end of the 19th century Albrechtsburg Castle was also made accessible to the public and still delights many visitors from home and abroad. The former electoral castle rises above a hook-shaped ground plan on a rocky plateau steeply sloping towards the Elbe north of Meissen Cathedral . All storeys are vaulted, a great peculiarity of German palace construction, which required an immense financial and design effort. The high substructures of

2250-733: Was an ideal geometric plan implemented so uniformly. The design of the original model could go back to August himself. He also completed the extensive conversion of the Dresden Residential Palace (1553-1556), which his brother Maurice had started. He let build Jägerhof (Dresden) and converted numerous older castles into hunting lodges, including Nossen, Grillenburg, Schwarzenberg and the new Gommern Castle. He had Annaburg Castle and Lichtenburg Castle built for his wife, and Dippoldiswalde and Freudenstein as official castles. His successor Christian I (1586–1591) continued his father's building activities. Above all, Nosseni's work caused

2300-465: Was not only to become a residential palace that was particularly comfortable to live in, but also an unmistakable sign of the increasingly consolidating territorial rule of the Wettins, which was gaining in imperial, administrative and economic importance. For this purpose Arnold von Westfalen was probably expected to formulate a new architectural language. While the architectural decoration belongs to

2350-472: Was previously typical only of the large church building lodges. The cellular vaulting developed in Albrechtsburg Castle and the curtain-like upper finishes of the main windows were copied over a wide area; in some cases, the forms initially created for the profane area were subsequently even introduced into sacred buildings. Here, a reversal of the traditional artistic gradient is indicated, as

2400-436: Was probably originally intended for high-ranking guests, but in the course of the 16th century the princes retreated there to a separate table during the main meals. At the time of construction, separation from the total meal was only customary for the female members of the court, the so-called Frauenzimmer. The master builder also designed a room with three window fronts for them, but on the first floor, where this group of people

2450-478: Was somewhat separated from the courtly activities. On the second floor, in addition to the Frauenzimmertafelstube and two other smaller apartments on the south side, the three-roomed apartment of the Elector was furnished as a centre between the Elbe and courtyard front. In addition to the parlour with windows on two sides as the main reception room and the more intimate bedroom on the other side,

2500-640: Was to become increasingly evident in the course of the 16th century. In 1471 Arnold von Westfalen was also given the newly created office of a sovereign master builder, so that he, as a former representative of the modern profession of the court artist, was able to assert his influence under the roof of the early modern territorial state that was forming. 51°09′58″N 13°28′15″E  /  51.16611°N 13.47083°E  / 51.16611; 13.47083 Freudenstein Castle Freudenstein Castle ( German : Schloss Freudenstein )

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