The building and the adjoining garden area are integrated into the planned historical district in which a main street runs south of the castle grounds. Consisting of a manor house, a small north-west and a larger adjacent wing to the north-east, it was built in several construction phases and architecturally changed. From the original building from the middle of the 12th century, only the foundations have been preserved. The oldest remaining components include two underground cellars and the tower, which the Margrave of Meißen, Wilhelm I, had built from 1389.
Built on the foundation walls of a Gothic moated castle, the complex served the Wettins from 1387 to 1540 as an administrative and travel residence. Subsequently, the castle was converted into a Renaissance castle by Saxon electors from 1540 to 1558 and inhabited by them during their travels. The exterior of the complex was last changed at the end of the 17th century, which gave it its baroque appearance. From then on it was used by the Principality of Saxony-Merseburg as a widow's and traveler's residence.
After a stage-by-stage restoration from 1993, the Baroque Delitzsch Palace is now used as a museum, tourist information office, registry office, branch of the “Heinrich Schütz” district music school in Northern Saxony and a supraregional event location. The cultural monument is owned by the city of Delitzsch.
In the 9th / 10th In the 19th century, Slavic Sorbs built a wooden castle on the area of ??today's palace gardens under the protection of the Loberbach loop. In the early phase of the eastern colonization under King Heinrich I, the area between the Saale and Elbe came under the rule of German ministerials who built a stone castle guard on the neighboring hill instead of the wooden Slavic castle. In the protection of the extended castle, an early urban Slavic settlement of craftsmen and merchants was built in the northern outer bailey area in 1140/50. Around 1200 the castle developed into the seat of a lower judicial district. For the period between 1207 and 1224, three days of court and denial of the Margraves of Meißen and Landgraves of Thuringia are documented. In addition to its function as an administrative and bailiff's seat, the castle complex also served as a travel residence for the Wettins.
After the death of Friedrich III. In 1381, Wilhelm I and his brother Balthasar von Wettin carried out the so-called division of Chemnitz, in which he received the margraviate of Meissen as an inheritance. He then had the stone Burgward rebuilt from 1387 to 1391 into a fortified moated castle in the Gothic style, the existence of which is still indicated by the castle tower and two underground cellars. The castle was located on a mountain and was surrounded by a moat that was connected to the city wall and moat and could only be crossed by a bridge. Margrave Wilhelm I used the castle complex as one of his most popular sovereign travel residences. In this function it served the Saxon rulership until the 16th century and to accommodate the lordly administrative offices.
Under the Albertine Duke Moritz von Sachsen, the castle was rebuilt between 1540 and 1558 in the Renaissance style for the Electors of Saxony. The preliminary construction completion was formed by the negotiations of the electoral land rent master about the purchase of the castle moat from the city of Delitzsch. As in previous decades, numerous visitors from the Saxon rulers who used the castle as a place of residence on their travels are documented. For example, Landgrave Moritz von Hessen stayed there in 1600 and was entertained by the bailiff. On November 2, 1616, Johann Georg I was the last elector to stay in the palace for the time being. In contrast to most of the lordly palaces of the Electorate of Saxony, the Delitzsch Palace survived the Thirty Years War largely unscathed, but its appearance was damaged due to the billeting of Swedish mercenary associations. [4] After the peace treaty of 1648, Electoral Saxony was economically and socially stricken. It took a great deal of effort to reorganize administration and finance mainly at the regional level. This included the restoration of the administration building. In this context, the Delitzsch Castle was repaired again in 1652.
When the Saxon Elector Johann Georg I died in 1656, a de facto division of Saxony was carried out according to his will from 1652. In addition to the remaining electoral principality, there were three so-called secundogenitures, to which the Duchy of Saxony-Merseburg with the area around Delitzsch belonged. This duchy came under the rule of Duke Christian I, who expanded the old bishop's palace in Merseburg into his residence and the palace in Delitzsch into the future widow's seat of his wife. At the beginning, on the instructions of the ducal councilors, the Delitzsch office had to leave the living and working rooms in the castle. For this purpose, new service buildings were built in the castle district in the following years, which still exist today. The first construction work began on June 24, 1689 under the direction of court mason Simon Juffan. The focus was on the expansion of the representative royal house, which was to accommodate the apartment of the princely widows as well as the reception and guest rooms on the first floor. The building was designed in the style of the Saxon early baroque, with the castle tower being fitted with a baroque hood in 1695. This so-called Welsche Haube was and is the hallmark of the castle. The large weather vane with the initials CW (for Christianas Wittum) and the princely hood referred to Christiana's residence, which was visible from afar. The last construction work was completed in 1696. However, the already widowed Duchess Christiana von Sachsen-Merseburg and her court of around 30 people moved into the palace on May 31, 1692 and in the same year had today's palace gardens laid out based on French models in the immediate vicinity of the palace.
After the death of Duchess Christiane in 1701, the Merseburg ducal house only occasionally used the castle as a travel residence. It was not until 1731 to 1734 that the palace was regularly used as a residence again when the art-loving Duchess Henriette Charlotte, born Princess of Nassau-Idstein and widow of Duke Moritz Wilhelm von Sachsen-Merseburg, moved in. Even before Henriette Charlotte moved in on November 30, 1731, the princely couple stayed at Delitzsch Palace after their wedding in November 1711. Duke Moritz Wilhelm died in Merseburg on April 21, 1731, without leaving any descendants. After the funeral festivities, which lasted several days, his widow retired to Delitzsch Castle, where Duke Heinrich had previously arranged the redesign work requested by Henriette Charlotte. Henriette Charlotte influenced the interior design and brought her private treasury collection with her. The representative doors, the printed linen wallpaper and the chimneys in the ducal private apartments date from this time. The Duchess died in the palace on April 8, 1734 and was buried on May 4 at her request in front of the altar of the town church of St. Peter and Paul. Since the couple had no descendants, the Sachsen-Merseburg secondary school reverted to the Electorate of Saxony in 1738. Delitzsch Castle is the only architectural monument in Saxony-Merseburg on what is now the territory of the Free State of Saxony.
A large part of the stately furniture was brought to Hubertusburg Palace on September 17, 1755. Only a few years later there was another bloodletting: “On the instructions of the Saxon administrator, Prince Franz Xaver, in 1767 the Delitzsch house marshal and official secretary Müller had to deliver the old church regalia from the castle chapel to Dresden, where it had been sold in the inventory from other holdings of sovereign palaces to be closed . “In contrast, all the built-in elements such as chimneys, stoves, window and plinth panels, wallpaper and the parquet flooring of the castle were preserved. Until 1770 the castle belonged to the responsibility of the "Hauß Marschall-Amt" in Dresden, then it was transferred to the electoral chamber. After the renovations carried out in 1785, it was used as a judicial and rent office for administrative purposes, all fixtures in the castle chapel were removed and the altar and pulpit were sold to Hohenroda. The chapel was initially used as an archive before being demolished a few years later. The stone arbor, which was built to the north, was only demolished together with the stone parapet in 1813.
After a very eventful history in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 19th century, only the Prussian military used the rooms of the castle, until 1849 as a garrison for a Prussian Landwehr regiment and until 1860 as an artillery school. In 1855, the government in Merseburg decided to convert the building, which had been supplemented by various new buildings, into a prison. In December 1860, after several construction interruptions in several buildings in the castle district, regular operations as a women's penitentiary began. Its catchment area extended to the entire Prussian province of Saxony. Mostly women were accommodated who had to serve several years to life imprisonment. The dormitories and workrooms of up to 300 women were set up in the castle building itself. In the current building of the city administration there were isolation and hospital cells, guard apartments and the prison church. The management of the penitentiary was located in the building of today's restaurant Zur Schloßwache. The penal institution existed until it was closed in 1926, only briefly interrupted in 1866 when the castle served as a hospital for several months as a hospital for wounded soldiers of the German-Austrian war.
After the prison was closed, the city of Delitzsch started negotiating with the government in Merseburg from 1928 on the purchase of the entire palace complex in order to build a new hospital on the site. The purchase agreement was concluded in 1929, but the global economic crisis prevented all further measures in the same year. Due to the subsequent economic development, emergency housing for the homeless had to be set up in the building of the city administration and the museum, a library and later also a vocational school, founded in 1900, moved into the castle building. On April 5, 1931, the museum received an "Ehrenberg Room", in which a large part of the collections of the Delitzsch naturalist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg was housed.
From 1974 to 1993 the building was closed by the police to the public due to considerable damage to the structure of the palace. In the summer of 1993, the museum in the castle tower and in some rooms of the ducal apartment could be opened for the first time extensive modernization measures will be reopened. By 2005 the tourist information office, the registry office, the district music school and an event cellar moved into the castle building. In 2008 the extensive renovation of the building, which took almost 20 years, was completed. A castle festival has been held every year in May / June since 2002 under the motto Vive le plaisir (Long live pleasure).
In 2019, more than 13,500 visitors visited the permanent and special exhibitions in the museum.
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