Castle History

The current Castle Blatna complex is undoubtedly one of the most historically valuable and architecturally significant monuments of its kind in our country. With its long history, distinct architecture in a rarely preserved environment of parks and water bodies, and its current state, it ranks among the gems of castle complexes. Alongside Švihov and Červená Lhota, it is one of the best-preserved water manor houses in the Czech Republic. Its architectural and historical development has made this object a remarkable example of artistic styles of past centuries, and because it was held mostly by significant noble families during its development, Blatna was a place where the history of Central Europe was born and transformed.

Archaeological findings show that the small hill amidst the marshes (from "blata" - marshes, Blatna gets its name) was settled already in prehistoric times. At the end of the 7th and especially in the 8th century, Slavs began to appear in the Blatna region. However, continuous Slavic settlement did not occur until the second half of the 10th century.

The settlement of Blatna arose thanks to an old important long-distance trade route connecting Sušice with Horažďovice, which crossed the Lomnice River at this place. The first historical mention of Blatna comes from 1235, when the then fortress is first mentioned in writing as the seat of Vyšemír (arrow coat of arms), perhaps a poorer relative of the Bavors of Strakonice. Another historical mention from 1241 recalls a certain Předosta of Blatna, and it is certain that by his time at the latest, a water-protected small castle existed here, consisting of a residential building and an architecturally demanding domestic Romanesque chapel, which was supposed to have originated sometime between the second half of the 12th century and 1225.

Nevertheless, the oldest period of the Blatna castle is sometimes associated, as is sometimes the case with other castles in our territory, with the Knight's Order of Templars, about which legends also arose. However, written reports document the holding of Blatna by secular feudal lords. More likely could be the influence of the Knight's Order of Hospitallers residing at the Strakonice castle, belonging to the Bavors of Strakonice, who acquired Blatna in the second half of the 13th century.

It is assumed that the first Bavors residing at Blatna were not satisfied with using a predominantly wooden fortified complex, but began rebuilding it into a more magnificent seat, surrounded by a stone wall protecting two palaces standing opposite each other. The natural defense of the castle, the surrounding swamps, began to be transformed into a continuous water fortification, which, however, was brought to its current form by later owners. Around 1299, Blatna can already be attributed the character of a true castle.

The last owner from the Bavor family until 1403 was Břetislav of Strakonice, nephew of Zdeněk of Rožmitál. The Bavor family died out in the male line, and the Rožmitáls, as their relatives, gradually inherited the Bavor property. The banner with the boar's head of the Lords of Rožmitál flew over the Blatna walls. The long period of their reign became a golden age for Blatna.

Under the first holder, Jan of Rožmitál, the original Romanesque seat was vigorously rebuilt, and Blatna became a Gothic fortress with a fortified entrance tower. Under the administration of this initially member of the moderate wing of the Hussite nobility, later however an uncompromising Catholic, the castle survived the stormy Hussite period. Only under Jan's descendants did the castle reach its peak architectural flourishing.

Jan's sons Jaroslav Lev and Protiva held Blatna from his death in 1430. Especially Jaroslav Lev, who appears in written sources as the owner of Blatna from 1446, held high state offices. He was a relative of King George of Poděbrady, a skillful diplomat, and a very educated man. Among other things, he headed the Czech peace delegation of forty Czech lords and knights that traveled around European courts in the years 1465 to 1467. During this journey, he was inspired by the advanced culture of the Western European nobility.

He then applied these inspirations in increasing the representativeness of his Blatna seat. He initiated its extensive late Gothic reconstruction, which brought the castle the characteristic dominant feature of the prismatic entrance tower with a pointed entrance portal, which replaced the previous poorer entrance gate, and the Gothic castle chapel and the so-called Rožmitál Palace adjoining the tower from the southeast side. He had the palace and his study on the first floor of the tower decorated with beautiful frescoes.

Jaroslav's son, Zdeněk Lev, held the office of the Highest Burgrave at the court of King Vladislaus Jagiellon in 1508. He loved luxury and increased the magnificence of his seats for his representation. His most significant construction action was the rebuilding of the southwestern palace into a three-story magnificent Gothic-Renaissance so-called Rejt's Palace. He invited the famous builder Benedikt Rejt to Blatna to build it. Benedikt Rejt had previously worked in royal services; his works include the Vladislav Hall at Prague Castle, as well as the Church of St. Barbara in Kutná Hora.

At the same time, however, he burdened the family treasury with high debts, and his son Adam Lev was therefore forced to sell the castle and the town of Blatna in 1555 to sisters Kateřina and Anna Řepická of Sudoměř. From them, Kateřina's husband Zdeněk of the Šternberk family bought the Blatna estate in 1560. Two years after Šternberk's death, Jan of Rozdražov from the old Polish family of Counts Rozdražovský bought Blatna in 1577.

Before long, however, he died, and after reaching majority, Blatna fell to his son Václav of Rozdražov for a number of years. At that time, on the northern side of the wall from the entrance tower almost to the Old Palace, the youngest of the Blatna palace buildings grew – the Renaissance Rozdražovský Palace. However, the Estates Uprising in the years 1618 to 1620 and the Thirty Years' War interrupted the improvement of the Blatna estate.

During the uprising, the castle was looted down to the bare walls by the army of the rebellious Czech estates, led by Mansfeld, and the same disaster befell the town and its inhabitants. Václav of Rozdražov preferred to retreat to Silesia in 1622, where he died in 1625.

The widow Anna Marie continued to live with her minor son František Ignác on the Blatna estate, who then took it over in 1645. However, even the post-White Mountain period did not favor the flourishing of Blatna. František Ignác died in 1691 without leaving an heir, and the Rozdražovský family thus died out in the male line.

The heir became Jan František Count Krakovský of Kolovrat, son of Anna Kateřina, sister of the deceased František Ignác. Immediately, however, he sold the estate to Countess Ernestina Serenyi, and the Hungarian-origin Serenyi family thus held Blatna from 1695 until the end of the 18th century. With the new nobility came a new, this time Baroque epoch, evidenced by many Baroque statues in the town, the magnificently rebuilt church in nearby Paštiky, as well as the Baroque reconstruction of the Rozdražovský wing.

In 1798, Václav Karel (Wenzel Karl) Hildprandt of Ottenhausen, a nobleman originally from Tyrol, bought Blatna from the Serenyi brothers, neither of whom had an heir. Blatna remained in the possession of Václav Karel and his descendants, with a forced interruption during the communist era, until the present day.

Under František (Franz) Hildprandt, a costly adaptation of the castle took place, aimed at creating a representative seat, providing, however, at the same time comfortable living. Then, under Robert Hildprandt, the castle underwent neo-Gothic modifications in a romantic spirit between 1850 and 1856 according to the design of architect Bernard Grüber from Munich, which more or less gave the building its current character.

At the end of the 1940s, the castle was taken over by the National Cultural Commission, and after the communist coup, the Hildprandts' property was confiscated in 1952. Bedřich (Friedrich) Hildprandt with his wife Cornelia and daughters were allowed, thanks to the family's connections with Emperor Haile Selassie I, to legally emigrate to Ethiopia after 1958. Relics from the Ethiopian stay today form an engaging part of the castle exposition.

After 1991, the estate returned to the hands of the Hildprandt family, specifically the wife of Bedřich Hildprandt (who died in 1981 in Germany) Cornelia and their two daughters Josefina and Jana. The current owners are intensively engaged in its restoration and making it accessible to visitors.