Schlosspalast Hohenems

The Hohenems Palace dates back to a noble family in Vorarlberg, which was originally entrusted as a Reichsministerial (detectable since 1180) by the Guelphs and the Hohenstaufen with the hat of the castle of the Ems of Reichsburge the surveillance of the imperial road to Italy. At the end of the Middle Ages, the family owed their rise to military merit acquired by Merk Sittich I von Ems as Landsknechtsfuhrer in the service of Charles V in Italy and the marriage of Merk Wolf's son Dietrich with Chiara de Medici. She was a sister of the condottiere Gian Giacomo Medici (1498-1555), margrave Marignano of Milanese origins, whose younger brother Giovanni Angelo Medici was elected pope in 1559, on 6 January 1560 as Pius IV. For their "friendship with the new pope" Ferdinando I raised the Lords of Ems in 1560 in the Imperial Count.

The palace was enlarged at the beginning of the 17th century by a nephew Mark Sittichs, count Kaspar von Hohenems (1573-1640).

After the death of the last imperial count of Hohenems, Francis William III, in 1759, his daughter Maria Rebecca inherited the property. She was married to the k.u.k. Field Marshal Franz Xaver Count Harrach-Rohrau-Kunewald. Their only daughter Maria Walburga Erbgräfin Harrach-Lustenau-Hohenems married Clemens Alois Reichserbtruchsess Count Waldburg-Zeil-Trauchburg in 1779. They became the government accounts of Lustenau in 1806.

In 1813 Clemens Waldburg-Zeil-Lustenau-Hohenems acquired the possessions of Lustenau and Hohenems from his wife. Since his four sons had died, in the same year he adopted his nephew, son of the 1st prince in power Waldburg-Zeil, Count Reichserbtruchsessen Maximilian Clemens Waldburg-Zeil-Hohenems (1799-1869), who after his death to his life universal has been determined. In 1840 the palace was converted into a barracks and, from 1882, restored and inhabited by Count Clemens Waldburg-Zeil and his family. In 1912, his second son Georg married Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska. In 1954, the eldest son, Franz Josef (great-grandson of Emperor Franz Joseph I and his wife Elizabeth), took over the palace and the castle of Glopper from his cousin. Both properties are still owned and occupied by Franz Josef Waldburg-Zeil and his wife Priscilla.