The
Miramare Castle ( ; Slovene:Grad Miramar, ) is a
19th century castle, built for Austrian
Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian and his wife,
Charlotte of Belgium, later Emperor Maximilian I and Empress Carlota of Mexico
.
The castle
is situated on the Gulf of Trieste
near Trieste
,
northeastern Italy
.
Construction took place from 1856 to 1860 to a design by
Carl Junker on the orders of
Archduke Maximilian.
The castle's grounds include an extensive cliff and seashore park
of designed by the Archduke. The grounds were completely
re-landscaped to feature numerous tropical species of trees and
plants.
History
Miramare Castle
350 px
The Castle of Miramare and its Park were built by order of
Ferdinand Maximilian (1832-1867), of
the
House of Habsburg - younger
brother of
Franz Joseph,
Emperor of Austria.
In 1850, at the age of
eighteen, Maximilian came to
Trieste with his brother Charles and, immediately
afterwards, he set off on a short cruise toward the near
East. This journey confirmed his intention to sail and to
get to know the World. In 1852 he was appointed Officer and in 1854
he became Commander in Chief of the Imperial Navy.
He decided to move to
Trieste and to have a home built facing the sea and
surrounded by a park worthy of his name and rank.
According to tradition, when the
Archduke
was caught in a sudden storm in the Gulf, he took shelter in the
little harbour of
Grignano and he chose
that bare rocky spur of limestone origin as the setting for his
home.
The
whole complex, purchased for the first time at the beginning of
March 1856, was called Miramar, after the name of Prince
Ferdinand of Saxony’s
residence in Pena
, Portugal
.
Designed in 1856 by
Carl Junker, an
Austrian architect, the architectural structure of Miramare was
finished in 1860.
The style reflects the artistic interests of
the Archduke, who was acquainted with the
eclectic architectural styles of Austria, Germany
and England
. The
craftsman
Franz Hofmann and his son,
Julius, were entrusted with the furnishing and decorations.
Hofmann,
who worked in the city of Trieste, was a
skilful artisan who was willing to follow Maximilian’s
suggestions.Both the artisan and his patron had a similar
cultural formation and they were well acquainted with the eclectic
tendencies of the time.
The work,
steadily supervised by Maximilian, was finished only after his
departure in 1864 for Mexico where he was
appointed Emperor, and where after a brief
reign he was shot in Querétaro
in June 1867. Maximilian intended to create
in the Castle an intimate atmosphere in the area reserved for his
family – an area which he wanted to be in contact with nature,
reflecting both his own spirit and that of an epoch.
The Castle interior.
On the ground floor, destined for the use of
Maximilian and his wife,
Charlotte of Belgium, worthy of note
are the bedroom and the
Archduke’s office,
which reproduce the cabin and the stern wardroom respectively of
the
frigate Novara, the war-ship
used by
Maximilian when he
was Commander of the Navy to circumnavigate the world between 1857
and 1859; the library, whose walls are lined with bookshelves and
the rooms of the Archduchess with their tapestry of light-blue
silk. All the rooms still feature the original furnishings,
ornaments, furniture and objects dating back to the middle of the
19th century. Many coats of arms of the
Second Mexican Empire decorate the
castle, as well as stone ornamentations on the exterior depicting
the
Aztec eagle.
The first floor includes guest reception areas and the Throne Room.
Of note are the magnificent panelling on the ceiling and walls and
the Chinese and Japanese drawing-rooms with their oriental
furnishings. Of particular interest is the room decorated with
paintings by
Cesare
Dell’Acqua, portraying events in the life of
Maximilian and the history of
Miramare.
Currently, the rooms in the Castle are mostly arranged according to
the original layout decided upon by the royal couple. A valuable
photographic reportage commissioned by the
Archduke himself made accurate reconstruction
possible.
Nowadays to visit the Castle is to experience the fascination of
life in the middle of the 19th century in a residence that has
remained largely intact and which gives the visitor an insight into
the personality of Maximilian.
Castelletto
Elevations of the Castle annexe
("Castelletto") taken from Junker’s plans
After
having been commissioned as an officer in the Imperial navy in
1852, Maximilian decided to
move to Trieste where he
stayed for increasingly longer and more frequent periods. He
rented a villa on the slopes of the hill of
San Vito from
Niccolò Marco Lazarovich with a clause in the contract
that allowed him to make all the modifications he considered
necessary. Subsequently, during the completion of the Castle of
Miramare, the
Archduke had a small castle
called the Gartenhuys or
Castelletto built which
reproduced on a smaller scale the façade of the main castle and
which he lived in off and on until Christmas 1860. The
Castelletto, situated in a panoramic area, faces
Grignano on one side and on the other a parterre
surrounded by trees and on a clearing in front of greenhouses at
the centre of which there is a fountain. Modelled on eclectic forms
on a square base with a terrace facing the Castle, the tower and
the arbour entrance, the Castelletto has a small number of simply
furnished rooms. On the ground floor there is a decoration on
plaster painted to resemble wood.
On the first floor, on the other hand
there is a decoration very similar to the one in Villa
Lazarovich which can be connected to Maximilian’s decision to transfer to
the Castelletto his own part of the ornaments of the Villa
which was his first residence in Trieste.
In fact,
the rooms in Turkish and German styles and
the room decorated with panels of female figures present strong
parallels between the two buildings and highlight the artistic
tendencies of the time: numerous decorations, walls covered in
paintings, many ornaments, heavy curtains and rooms crowded with
furniture.
The Castelletto is closely linked to the tragic history of
Maximilian and
Charlotte.
It was here that
Charlotte stayed upon her
return from Mexico with a
nervous breakdown, between the end of 1866 and the beginning of
1867, while awaiting her return to Belgium
. It also housed part of the furnishings of
the Castle of Miramare during the period when the
Duke of Aosta stayed there.
Park of Miramare
The park
of Miramare, which at one time had no vegetation, and has now a
surface area of 22 hectares, stands on a rocky promontory
overlooking the Adriatic
Sea
.The site was planned and arranged by
Carl Junker, according to the wishes of
the
Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg who carefully
followed the building of his residence.As far as the botanical
aspect was concerned, a gardener,
Josef
Laube, was called in but was replaced in 1859 by
Anton Jelinek, a Bohemian who had taken part
in the
frigate Novara's expedition
around the world.
The park, on which work began in 1856, represents a classic example
of a mixed, artificial implantation of ligneous forest-trees and
bushes and it succeeds in blending the charm of a typically
Northern environment and a Mediterranean context. In contrast to
the baroque garden, the English one – on which Miramare is modelled
– introduces a new relationship with nature, resulting from a
different sensibility towards the material world. This is why, when
strolling along the paths in the park, you can breathe in an
atmosphere that is tightly bound up with the life of its owner and
his romantic relationship with nature, which was typical of his
epoch.
Close-up of the French formal
garden
Before 1856, the park area was bare, with only some shrubs and
thorny bushes. Today, on the other hand, there is a group of
different arboreous species that are, for the most part, of
non-European origin or in any case, that are not native to the
area.
Within a period of ten years, cedars of
Lebanon
, North Africa and the
Himalayas were planted, along with firs and spruces from Spain
, cypresses
from California
and Mexico, various
species of pine from Asia and America, to which some exotic specimens, such as
the giant sequoia and the ginkgo biloba, were added. Miramare was
conceived as a private garden and not as a park.In fact it doesn’t
have a monumental entrance or a driveway up to the Castle. It was a
garden of wonders, not intended for public use, even though the
Archduke opened it to the public a few days
per week. Watercourses, pools, twisting paths, trees placed
according to natural models, some grassy areas, are typical of
English gardens. The roughness of the ground favoured the irregular
lay-out of the promontory, combining the artificial transformation
with the natural environment.
The park is also characterised by the presence of some buildings
included in Junker’s project: the
Castelletto – inhabited
off and on by
Maximilian and
Charlotte – on which work began
at the same time as work on the Castle; the greenhouses, intended
for the growingof the plants to be placed in the park; the ruins of
the chapel dedicated to
Saint Canciano, in whose apse is
preserved a cross made from the wood of the
frigate Novara, which was laid up in 1899;
and lastly a little house, used nowadays as a coffee-shop, the
"
Swiss house", placed at the edge of the swans’
lake.
Up until
1954, Miramare became the headquarters for German, New Zealand
, English and American
forces of occupation respectively. Finally
in 1955, the complex was reopened to the public under the official
name of the Park of Miramare whose management was entrusted to the
Sopraintendenza per i Beni Architettonici ed il Paesaggio e per
il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico of the
Friuli-Venezia Giulia
region.
Today the gardens play host during the summer season to spectacles
such as the musical "
Sissi", reliving the story of the
Empire in its natural setting, and various concerts.
Miramare Castle’s Stables
Maximilian of Habsburg
commissioned the plan for Miramare Castle’s Stable, whose jobs have
been lead between 1856 and 1860, to architect
Carl Junker. He had already planned all the
works to be done in the Area of Miramare: the Castle, the Park and
all its access paths, the
Castelletto, the
Porticciolo (Little port), the conservatories , the Swiss
house and the pavilion at the back of parterre.Junker’s sketches
are important to understand the planning of the Stable’s building,
in its totality and in each single part, all directed to a specific
use.
The
building (which is) made up of three parts surrounding a central
yard opened to the sea, rise up on the road leading up to Trieste, in a
sheltered, healthy place, far enough from the Castle. It is
square. The central section was destined to horses: Junker’s
sketches even report the animal boxes, lined up over the bottom
perimeter. The 2 wings, perfectly symmetrical, are divided into 3
parts: near the stables we can find boxrooms for the harness; then
the accommodations for the staff and, finally, the kitchens, near
the sea. The great pavilion at the back was reserved to coaches.
Its access on the west side is made up of two main doors (probably
one was the access, the other the exit).
Between the two World Wars, when the Castle was inhabited by the
Dukes of Aosta, the first changes
were made to the Stables.
Miramare after 1867
Main entrance
After the
death of Maximilian I in
Mexico in June 1867 and Charlotte’s departure for Belgium, the Castle and the Park continued to be a place
where the Habsburgs spent short
periods.
Already
in September 1882 the Emperor Franz Joseph with Elizabeth of Austria and the heir to
the throne Rudolf
with his consort Stéphanie of Belgium,
stayed in Miramare during an official visit to Trieste and gave
receptions for the notables of the city. In August 1885 the
Archduchess
Stéphanie stayed there
for a few days. Between 1869 and 1896, the Empress
Elizabeth is recorded as having stayed
there on at least fourteen occasions. On 22 March 1900,
Stéphanie of Belgium –
Charlotte’s niece and
Rudolf’s widow – chose the
chapel of the Castle for her second marriage to the Hungarian noble
Elemér de Lónyay.
From March 9 to April 11 1914, the heir to
the throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand lived in the
Castle with his wife and sons and gave hospitality to the Prussian
Emperor William; two
months later the Archduke was assassinated
at Sarajevo
. Worthy of note is also the visit of the
last Emperor
Charles and his
wife
Zita.
During
the First World War all the furniture
and works of art belonging to the Castle were moved to Vienna
and stored
in the Schönbrunn
and Belvedere
Palaces and in the court libraries. At the
end of the war the whole territory of Miramare passed under the
direct control of the Italian government.
Between October 1925
and March 1926, by mutual consent of the two governments, Austria returned all
the furnishings in order to make possible the reconstruction of the
Castle’s original interior. The restoration of the
furnishings and rooms, under the direction of the Royal
Superintendence, meant that the museum could be opened to the
public on March 24, 1929.
Two years
later the government assigned Miramare to Duke
Amedeo of Aosta, captain
of the first air division stationed in Gorizia
, who lived there continuously till 1937 when he was
appointed viceroy of Ethiopia
. The Castle was also inhabited off and on by
the Duke’s family until the middle of 1943.
Nonetheless, the visitors were allowed access to the upper part of
the Park and, from 1931, to the
Castelletto, furnished
with the
Archduke Maximilian’s fittings which had not
formed part of the
Duke of
Aosta’s furnishings. Afterwards the Castle was used as a school
for officers by the
German troops who
occupied the city. As a result of the opposition of the
Gauleiter Friedrich
Rainer to the conversion of the Castle into a
Nazi headquarters the building was saved from
the possible danger of bombardment. In the meantime, the
furnishings had been removed and were kept in various buildings in
the city.
At the
end of 1945, the New
Zealand troops under the command of the General Freyberg
entered Trieste and settled
in the Castle, making many changes to the interior.
The
British troops
followed, and set up the headquarters of XIII Corps in Miramare.
Finally
the Americans came and the castle served as headquarters for the
American garrison Trieste
United States Troops(TRUST) from 1947 to October 3,
1954. The Superintendence immediately began the work of
restoration of the interior of the Castle and the
Castelletto and the layout of the Park. On the basis of
drawings and period photographs, wood decorations were restored in
the rooms and furniture, furnishings, pictures and tapestries were
rearranged.Finally, in March 1955, the Park was reopened free of
charge to the public and from June 2 of the same year,
Maximilian of Habsburg’s residence
was officially named
The Historical Museum of the Castle of
Miramare and entrusted to the
Sopraintendenza per i Beni
Architettonici ed il Paesaggio e per il Patrimonio Storico,
Artistico ed Etnoantropologico of the
Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Over the
years it has become an attraction for thousands of tourists
interested in experiencing full immersion in one of the very few
examples of European historical residences which have preserved
almost entirely their original furnishings and which, still today,
transmit the charm of living around the middle of the Nineteenth
century.
Museum
Visitors to the castle will be able to see the following:
Maximilian's chambers and those of
his consort,
Charlotte; the
guest rooms; the information room telling the history of the Castle
and the Park's construction; the Duke
Amedeo of Aosta's apartment with
furnishings from the 1930s in the
Rationalist style. All the rooms
still feature the original furnishings, ornaments, furniture and
objects dating back to the middle of the 19th century. Particularly
noteworthy are the music room where
Charlotte used to play the fortepiano,
now on show in room VII. In room XIX there are a series of
paintings by
Cesare dell'Acqua
depicting the history of Miramare. Lastly, visitors may visit the
throne room, which was recently restored to its former
splendour.
Gallery
File:CastelloMiramare.jpgFile:Statue of Archduke Ferdinand
Maximilian.jpgFile:Giardinetto Miramare.jpgFile:Miramare
Trieste.jpgFile:Castelletto di Miramare.jpg|Castelleto di
MiramareFile:View from Miramare Castle -
Trieste.JPGFile:ScalinataMareMiramare.jpgFile:Dell'Acqua
Arrival of Empress Elisabeth in Miramare.jpg|Carlota of Mexico and Elizabeth of Austria bid each other
farewell before the departure for MexicoFile:LAPORTATrieste Miramar.jpgFile:Castello
di Miramare 0904 interior 2.jpgFile:Castello di Miramare 0904
interior 3.jpgFile:Trieste miramare.jpg
See also
External links
, Maximilian's Palace in Mexico
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