Častolovice Chateau

17th century 

Bohuslav Balbín, one of the greatest Czech natural scientists of the 17th century, lived behind the walls of the Častolovice castle from 1625. As an orphaned boy, he came to the castle thanks to the local nobleman Otto of Oppersdorf and spent his childhood here under his protection.

 

Not far from Kostelec nad Orlicí, in the Rychnov nad Kněžnou district, there lies the beautiful castle garden of the Častolovice castle. The original fortress without the adjacent garden stood here in the 13th century, in the 17th century it was rebuilt into the present form of a Renaissance chateau under the ownership of the Oppersdorf family. The lords of Oppersdorf were Catholic noblemen with an important position in East Bohemia. Their influence and importance grew even more after the Battle of White Mountain and the decline of the Protestant nobility and bourgeoisie. The most important figure of this family at this time was Otto of Oppersdorf, who served as the governor of Hradec Králové. It was during his reign that an important figure of Czech science moved to the castle in Častolovice. In 1625, a four-year-old boy Bohuslav Balbín, the son of the recently deceased Lukáš Balbín of Vorličná, who was Otto`s friend, moved to the castle. Otto of Oppendorf took in the orphan and began to raise him in the castle. He himself was a great lover of nature, forestry and botany and as an experienced forester he used to take little Balbín hunting and show him all the beauty of the Častolovice nature. During hunts and still hunts he awakened in his young protégé a great talent for observation and instilled in him the first foundations of natural science knowledge, from which Bohuslav Balbín later drew in his naturalistic wanderings through the Czech lands. The park and the surrounding forests of the Častolovice chateau were the first places where Balbín made biological observations, which he later summarised in his book Diversities from the History of the Kingdom of Bohemia - the first natural history of Bohemia - first published in 1679. Besides Balbín and the beginnings of written natural history in this country, the chateau also became the place of residence of two other important figures of Czech culture - Josef Dobrovský and František Palacký.

 

References

BALBÍN, B.: Rozmanitosti z historie Království českého. Praha 2017

PH

Show in map