Schloss Thorn

Last updated February 21, 2019

Schloss Thorn is a former castle, that has been turned into a stately home. It lies in the locality of Schloss Thorn, in the municipality of Palzem in the Landkreis Trier-Saarburg, Rhineland-Palatinate. The current owners are the Barons von Hobe-Gelting.

Palzem is a municipality in the Trier-Saarburg district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Trier-Saarburg is a district in the west of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Neighboring districts are Bitburg-Prüm, Bernkastel-Wittlich, Birkenfeld, Sankt Wendel (Saarland), and Merzig-Wadern (Saarland). To the west it borders Luxembourg. The district-free city Trier is completely surrounded by the district.

Rhineland-Palatinate is a state of Germany.

Location

Schloss Thorn stands on a hillock that overlooks the access to the Moselle valley and to the Saargau. It is the south-western corner of the Landkreis Trier-Saarburg. It lies just across the river from the Luxembourg town of Remich.

The Moselle is a river flowing through France, Luxembourg, and Germany. It is a left tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A small part of Belgium is also drained by the Moselle through the Sauer and the Our.

The Saargau was a Frankish Gau county (Gaugrafschaft). Today the name is given to the ridge between the rivers Saar and Moselle in Germany and, in the south, the region between the Saar and the French border.

Remich is a commune with town status in south-eastern Luxembourg with just under 3,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the canton of Remich, which is part of the district of Grevenmacher. Remich lies on the left bank of the Moselle river, which forms part of the border between Luxembourg and Germany. The commune is the smallest in Luxembourg in area.

History

Due to the existence of a ford here, the Romans built a guard tower on a protruding rock here to protect and observe the crossing. This tower would give the later medieval castle its name, the Latin "turris" meaning "tower".^[1]

Schloss Thorn was built on the ruins of the probably rectangular, medieval castle guarded by round corner towers. Until the 16th century it was a fief of the lords of Rollingen (hereditary marshals of Luxembourg) to the lords of Bübingen. Then it passed to the ownership of the lords of Musiel, where it remained until the end of the 19th century. It had become decrepit by the end of the 15th century, and was rebuilt in 1536 by the new owner apart from two towers and a part of the defensive wall. In 1800, it was rebuilt by the owning family into more of a stately home and the old defensive buildings were turned into garden terraces.

One of the two towers left after the 16th century renovations, the round tower at the south-eastern corner was destroyed by bombardment in 1945. The second, a rectangular tower that used to be inhabitable, is now a gate tower.^[2]

Due to the rebuilding and renovation work carried over hundreds of years, the castle now shows characteristics of the architectural styles of the Middle Ages, through to the Renaissance, Baroque and Empire styles.^[1]

Medieval architecture architectural style

Medieval architecture is architecture common in the Middle Ages, and includes religious, civil, and military buildings. Styles include pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, and Gothic. While most of the surviving medieval architecture is to be seen in churches and castles, examples of civic and domestic architecture can be found throughout Europe, in manor houses, town halls, almshouses, bridges, and residential houses. An example of early medieval secular architecture is the palace of Santa María del Naranco, in Spain, built around 850.

Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 14th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance architecture followed Gothic architecture and was succeeded by Baroque architecture. Developed first in Florence, with Filippo Brunelleschi as one of its innovators, the Renaissance style quickly spread to other Italian cities. The style was carried to France, Germany, England, Russia and other parts of Europe at different dates and with varying degrees of impact.

Baroque architecture is the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late 16th-century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church. It was characterized ..by new explorations of form, light and shadow, and dramatic intensity. Common features of Baroque architecture included gigantism of proportions; a large open central space where everyone could see the altar; twisting columns, theatrical effects, including light coming from a cupola above; dramatic interior effects created with bronze and gilding; clusters of sculpted angels and other figures high overhead; and an extensive use of trompe-l'oeil, also called "quadratura," with painted architectural details and figures on the walls and ceiling, to increase the dramatic and theatrical effect.

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References

1 2 "Schloss Thorn" . Retrieved 7 October 2013.
↑ "Schloss Thorn, Palzem, Schloss Thorn". Datenbank der Kulturgüter in der Region Trier (in German). Retrieved 7 October 2013.

External links

Schloss Thorn

Coordinates: 49°33′07″N6°23′01″E / 49.55194°N 6.38361°E / 49.55194; 6.38361

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

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[:0-1] 1 2 "Schloss Thorn" . Retrieved 7 October 2013.

[2] "Schloss Thorn, Palzem, Schloss Thorn". Datenbank der Kulturgüter in der Region Trier (in German). Retrieved 7 October 2013.