Velenjski Grad

Velenje Castle is one of the best preserved castles in Slovenia. It was first mentioned in written sources in 1270. Today it has the form of a typical military-residential fortress. Over the centuries, the castle was expanded and rebuilt, and it acquired its current appearance as a Renaissance palace in the 16th century. The mighty washer in the southeastern part of the castle complex is completely Renaissance. It is defined in style and time by the Renaissance windows on the second floor, the accentuated stone barrel crown, the characteristically shaped resin spouts and the typical rectangular or mullioned windows. Windows of exactly the same shape as those on the round are found on the courtyard side of the south wing of the building. The portal of the entrance tower also has the typical profile of Renaissance windows. Although the architectural appearance of the castle has been completely preserved, with the exception of the drawbridge, which was removed in the middle of the 19th century, unfortunately almost nothing of the interior decoration has survived to the present day.

The first owners of the castle were the Lords of Kunšperk, followed in the 14th century by their relatives, the Ptujki, after which the castle often changed hands. In the second half of the 15th century, the Lichtenberg family lived in the castle, and in the 16th century the castle passed by marriage to the Wagen zu Wagensberg family. Both families were involved in Lutheran activities in the Šaleška valley. During the time of the Wagens, the castle also underwent major reconstructions, which gave the castle its current appearance as a Renaissance castle with a tondo. The memory of the Counts of Wagne is represented by a flag in the castle courtyard. The Sauer family completed the alterations. After them, the castle was owned by members of the lower official nobility, briefly by the de la Fontaine dHarnoncourt-Unverzagt family in the mid-19th century, and then by the Adamovich de Csepin family. Karel I. Adamovich de Csepin, a regional deputy, and his wife Bianca were well-known benefactors of Velenje, and the well-known Vila Bianca, as the manor house built in the mid-19th century in today's Old Velenje, is named after Bianca. The family name is represented by the coat of arms, which is embedded in the southern wall of the palace in the castle courtyard. In 1918, the family sold the castle to their relatives, the noble Italian family Coronini-Cromberg from Gorizia, who were the last owners of the castle.

The history of the castle's construction is known in its basic contours. The original castle had the form of an irregular castle with a small tower in the north-west corner and probably soon after - if not simultaneously - a narrow palace built along the southern part of the design. The castle was built in this form in the mid-thirteenth century, and subsequent periods are characterized by the gradual development of available areas within the walled space. The most important interventions of this period are the construction of a strong round tower at the southwest corner of the drawing, which dates from the Late Gothic period, and the erection of the walls after the middle of the 14th century, to which defensive columns were added only later. During the mature Renaissance, provisionally defined by the year 1558 on the entrance portal, the castle assumed its present appearance in its basic features. On the eastern side, a new wing was added to the castle from the outside, which also surrounded the northern part of the original project; in doing so, a part of the northern wall of the castle was demolished and the new wing created a staircase, from which access was gained to the interior of the castle. In the core of the castle, the underground rooms of the west wing were vaulted, the courtyard was provided with arcades, and the late Gothic outer wall was fortified with two turrets and a mighty round tower, which still retains intact its defensive system in the cantilevered crown of the attic floor, defined by a succession of embrasures and resin vents.