Chateau Chapel of the Most Holy Trinity / Zámecká kaple Nejsvetejší Trojice - Vranov nad Dyjí (South Moravia) - Roman Catholic Churches on Waymarking.com

Chateau Chapel of the Most Holy Trinity (Zámecká kaple Nejsvetejší Trojice), part of the Chateau Vranov nad Dyjí complex built in 1699-1700, belongs to the jewels of the ecclesiastical Central European Baroque architecture.

Shortly after the completion of the central building of the Baroque chateau Vranov, the monumental and stunning Hall of Ancestors, is organized by the art-loving Count Michael Jan II. of Althann another ingenious project by the famous architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, the construction of the Chateau Chapel of the Holy Trinity with an underground Althann tomb. In just two years (in 1699 and 1700), there is already a new, architecturally exceptionally valuable building, which consists of a central cylindrical nave with six spaces with an oval floor plan, symmetrically distributed around its perimeter. The ceiling and walls are decorated by the Austrian painter Ingác Heinitz of Heinzenthal, which deals with the themes of Heaven, Paradise and the Last Judgment in oval fillings above the altar, and in the fresco of the dome depicting the family patron and protector of the Church of the Archangel Michael. The chapel, representing the ideological and compositional counterweight of the Hall of Ancestors and its iconographic content reminiscent of the transience of being, the last things of man and its duration in eternity, is again connected with the family idea, with the hidden idea of celebrating the Althann family.

The Chapel is administered as a filial church of the Vranov nad Dyjí Roman Catolic parish, but is without regular services. As a part of the Chateau tour can be visited during the season.

Chateau Vranov nad Dyjí (Zámek Vranov nad Dyjí), one of the most remarkable buildings of the Central European Baroque, was created by rebuilding of a Romanesque-Gothic castle firstly mentioned in 1100. The current form was imprinted on it after a devastating fire in 1665 by Counts of Althann. Baroque reconstruction and reshaping of the castle complex began at the end of the 17th century according to the project of the famous court architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. The impressive Hall of Ancestors was built and decorated, dominating the rocky valley of the river Dyje and artistically enhancing its distinctive charm. Immediately, the castle chapel of the Holy Trinity was built as its ideological counterweight. The reconstruction was then completed by the residential buildings of the Court of Honor in the 18th century. The chateau was then acquired by the Polish aristocratic Mniszek family, which brought to the unprecedented prosperity of the famous Vranov manufactory for the production of earthenware and porcelain. Their relatives, the Stadnicky family, were the owners of Vranov until the beginning of World War II. During the war, Baron Gebhard von der Wense-Mörse bought the chateau as a German imperial confiscation. After the end of the war, the chateau became state property and today it is a National Cultural Monument and one of the most visited chateaux in Moravia.

Source: excerpted and translated from Wikipedia and National Heritage Institute portal.