Čížkovice Chateau

The castle in Čížkovice in the Litoměřice region was created between sixteen fifty-eight and sixteen sixty-five through the reconstruction of an older fortress. The architect Giulio Broggio designed the project and the reconstruction is considered to be his first independent work. The castle is today protected as a cultural monument.

The village had been divided into two parts since the thirteenth century and each had its own fortress, an upper and lower one. The smaller part belonged to the Kaplicrs of Sulevice. The larger section was held by the Prague Saint George monastery, but in fourteen thirty-six Emperor Sigismund pawned it to Jan Kaplíř of Sulevice at Košťálov. From fourteen eighty-six the sons of Buška Kaplíř shared Čížkovice and both fortresses then passed between members of the family. It was only Jaroslav Kaplíř who united the entire village in one hand. After fifteen ninety-eight he bought his brother Jan's share for four thousand eight hundred Meissen groschen and also joined the indebted part after his uncle Albrecht.

Adam Kaplíř had half of his property confiscated, including Čížkovice, for his participation in the Estates Revolt. In sixteen twenty-three it was bought by Volf Ilburk of Vřesovice. He converted the upper fortress into a tavern, after which perhaps only filled-in cellars remained under one of the houses in the village. In sixteen thirty-eight Čížkovice together with the estates Boreč and Košťálov were acquired by Anežka of Eberstein. A year later Swedish soldiers burned the village. Anežka's son Gustav Adolf of Varrensbach then had the abandoned lower fortress rebuilt as a Baroque castle.

In sixteen ninety-two the village returned to the Saint George monastery and the castle became the summer residence of the abbess. Around it a park developed enclosed by a wall decorated with Rococo vases. After the monastery was dissolved in seventeen eighty-two the castle passed to the religious fund. In eighteen nineteen Josef Glaserfeld bought it at a public auction and from eighteen eighty-six it belonged to industrialist Franz Preidl of Česká Kamenice. After nineteen forty-five it served as a temporary sanatorium for political prisoners from the Theresienstadt concentration camp and later as a retirement home.

Broggio's building was single-storied and had three wings. In the protruding risalit is a portal framed by pilasters with a split cornice. In the pediment above it is a cartouche with a coat of arms. A moat surrounded the building until the beginning of the nineteenth century. After eighteen nineteen they partially filled it in and bridged it and the castle acquired two side wings. Inside, barrel vaults are preserved, early Baroque stuccos and stuccos from the nineteenth century. In the main hall remained stucco ceiling decoration and a fireplace from the nineteen-thirties of the eighteenth century.