Schloss Neidstein
Castle Neidenstein
The Neidenstein Castle is a 16th century castle in the municipality of Etzelwang in the district of Amberg -Sulzbach in Bavaria Upper Palatinate.
Castle Castle or later Neidenstein was the seat of a Hofmark in the country magistracy Sulzbach Sulzbach in the Duchy. It included 1790 yards in the places Albers village, Erkelsdorf, Ernhüll, Etzelwang, fichtenhof ( town of Neukirchen ) Lehendorf, Neidenstein, Penzenhof, Schnellersdorf and Tabernackel.
Geographical Location
The Neidenstein castle stands in the Franconian Switzerland Nature Park Veldenstein Forest on a spur of the Schlossberg (also called Minions Buck; 527.5 m above sea level. ), The south of the hamlet of Etzel Wanger Tabernackel rises. With its 165 hectares of woods and meadows, it is now part of the 17.78 acres and established in 1973, nature reserve minions Buck with lock Neidenstein ( NSG-Nr. 82519 ).
Ownership history
1119 a Neipert Nitstein is mentioned as a ministerial of the counts of Sulzbach. 1240 and 1243 Rupert de Nietstein appears as Reichsministeriale. After the Lords of Neidenstein probably at the end of the 13th century the castle fell into the hands of other noble families, 1326 to Ludwig of Bavaria. The Wittelsbach they pledged to noble families. On February 10, 1466 pledged Duke Ludwig the castle to Hans von Brandt ( Prantner ). The re- cashing around 1500 florins never took place, Neidenstein remained a fief of the von Brand ( t). The Barons of fire were the owner until the sale of 2006. Them to remember the burning branches in the coat of arms of Etzelwang.
Until July 1973 it was inhabited by Dr. Philipp Theodor Freiherr von Brand, who produced several publications to the castle. Since he had no children, the castle passed to his nephew Theodor Philipp Rudolf Freiherr von Brand, federal judges in the United States, who died in March 2004. Meanwhile, parents, Theodor von Brand and Margaret Brandeis were in 1933 fled from the Nazis in the United States. On 19 July 2006, the Hollywood actor and Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage bought the property. The Bunte magazine according to which he should have paid two million euros for it. In March 2009, Cage sold the castle to the Amberger lawyer Konrad Wilfurth.
Architectural History
Above the castle is located on the mountaintop ruins of a castle, of which only small residues are present: the former castle Neidenstein. The new castle - an elongated tract of eastern gatehouse and a round tower in the West - was built by Jobst von Brand ( t) and completed in 1513.
The present appearance, especially the gable, the castle owes a remodel 1855-1860. Reliefs with the themes of the Old Testament, which are located on a wall of the castle, as submitted by Georg Schweiger (17th century) from Amberg. The smiling portrait of the artist are the following verses added:
My art is offt fought to Hold me close to God, who helffen kan And working happily in meim Hauß Diss laughs in the Auss the window. G. S. 1601
Currently (March 2012 ), the castle renovated by its present owners and is not publicly available.
Inventory
The castle has 900 square meters of living space 28 rooms totally equipped not by Cage, the new owner has taken over. Some inventory items returned to Virginia to live there heirs of fire, the rest came on the sale, inter alia, a Brussels tapestry from the mid-16th century, a gift of the Wittelsbach family to the family of fire, were obtained for 30,000 euros. A sale of the inventory also belonging Gothic sculptures was not previously known.
Critics of castle auctions repeatedly point out that historical interiors, which together with the monument worthy of protection ensemble of monumental value, lost the research in this way.
Archive and Library
The reaching back to the 16th century castle archive consisting of domination and Gutsarchiv and the family archive ( a total of about 17 linear feet ), is located since early July 2006 as a deposit in the State Archives Amberg; it was not yet publicly available. 1796 to have been pre- scatters the horses in a passage of the French large parts.
The whereabouts of the precious castle library, nothing was known before it was announced in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that first crop of belletristic books in Munich at Hartung & Hartung come for sale at the auction from 7 to 9 November 2006. Shortly after the auction appeared on some of these books in the online offers of antique book shops; now called for in part with a sum of three times the amount of the price achieved at the auction. What is certain is that the Neidenstein library is thus lost as a whole.