Schloss Leonberg

The Leonberg Castle was part of the fortification of the city of Leonberg in Baden- Württemberg. It was later used as a widow seat of the Duchesses of Württemberg and is now home to the tax office.

History

The castle was built by Count Ulrich I of Württemberg ( 1226-1265 ). The founded around 1248/49 Leonberg received at its southwest corner of a castle as part of the fortification. At the request of Duke Christoph (1515-1568), this castle was rebuilt according to the plans of architect Aberlin Tretsch Württemberg from 1560 to 1570 the castle. It was the still existing three-part series from the three-storey building castle and housing in the middle, one on the east adjoining stables and the fruit box in the west. Duke Christopher used the palace mainly as a hunting lodge. Originally, the courtyard was completed by farm buildings on the other sides. Only on this courtyard, the facade was designed representative. The page for Glemstal remained unadorned.

The widow of Frederick I of Württemberg, Duchess Sibylla of Anhalt- Zerbst -Bernburg (1564-1614), the castle used from 1609 as a widow seat. She left it to Henry Schickhardt remodel the representative residence. He created mainly on the south side a proposal, based on four arcades upper room, which was lying on the still running there ramparts and could be entered from the room of the Duchess of. From here you could see straight to the Pomeranzengarten also of Schickhardt newly created, a pleasure garden in the style of the Italian Renaissance. To this day, an alliance coat of arms of Anhalt- Zerbst and Württemberg to the truss bay window on the courtyard side of their stay.

Later the castle was still used several times as a residence. So resided from 1634 to 1638 Count Matthias Gallas ( 1584-1647 ) with his imperial troops after the victory in the Battle of Nördlingen in Leonberger castle. Anna Sabina von Schleswig -Holstein -Sonderburg (1593-1659) used the palace as a widow's residence after the death of her husband, the Duke of Württemberg administrator Julius Friedrich of Württemberg, a son of the Duchess Sibylla. Here she died 1659th

Magdalena Sibylla of Hesse- Darmstadt (1652-1712) lived in the time of her regency for her son, Duke Eberhard Ludwig, from 1678 next to the Stettener and Stuttgart Castle again and again the Castle Leonberg. 1765 Duke Carl Eugen tried in vain to sell the castle to the city of Leonberg. Since the late 18th century, the building was then used as the official residence.

From 1796 to 1801 the Friedrich Schiller's mother, Elisabeth Dorothea Schiller (born Kodweiß, 1732-1802 ) has been assigned an apartment in the castle Leon Berger. She lived there with her still unserved fourth daughter and received a pension of one hundred guilders, half in cash and half in kind.

The small business and outbuildings, which once limited the courtyard north, had become soft a parking lot. The castle today the tax office is housed.