Zámek Litomyšl / Litomyšl Castle (East Bohemia) - Renaissance Architecture on Waymarking.com

Litomysl Castle, inscripted in 1999 into UNESCO World Heritage List, is a monumental Renaissance castle dating from the years 1568–1581. It is an outstanding and immaculately preserved example of the arcade castle, a type of building first developed in Italy and modified in the Czech lands to create an evolved form of special architectural quality.

The noble family of Pernstejn's rebuilt the original Mediaeval castle into a Renaissance castle in the second half of the 16th century. Despite of later reconstructions of interiors especially at the end of the 18th century the appearance of the castle remained almost intact including the unique scoring decoration of facades and fronton.

Castle is an asymmetrical building with four wings and three storeys: one of them is largest and another one has a two-storeyed arcaded groin-vaulted gallery, that continues in the second court on other two sides; there is also a polygonal tower and a smaller oblong court. The external facades, that have graffiti imitating diamond ashlars and a lunette on everyone, have also above the plinth of the ground floor and on the other floors stone biforate windows with reveals, lintels, hood mouldings and volute brackets; the main portal on the south façade has a semicircular arch, two double rusticated columns and a flat lintel with the coats of arms of the Pernštejn and Manriques de Lara families. Above the cornice is an attic gable with pilasters and windows and the finials have squat bases, pillars and a small attachment.

On a façade there is the end of the chapel, with twin triforate lancet windows and a polygonal turret with a pyramidal roof. The second courtyard has on three sides semicircular arcades; on the ground floor are rusticated pillars,arches and spandrels and the other floors have columns with feet, block socles, plinths and Tuscan capitals on the first floor, Ionic on the second; between the plinths are parapet walls with central pilaster strips. One façade has between the window sill of the first floor and the cornice a monumental graffiti with scenes from the Old Testament, classical history, Roman and Renaissance virtues, huntings and busts of warriors and heroes in the cartouches of the lunettes.

The neo-Classical wood theatre for 150 spectators sitting in the nine loggias and on its lower floor has nice painted decorations in the auditorium and in the stage and the machines. The Renaissance rooms have Baroque and neo-Classical plasterworks, wall and ceiling paintings and the original furniture. The Renaissance chapel has a nice portal, barrel vaults and paintings. In the first court and in the park are preserved all the ancillary buildings, like the Baroque and neo-classical brewery, the two stables, with a nine sections facade, a portal, windows, lateral entrances and four dormers, the riding school, the Lord’s House, the coach house, an another small house, a building for the coaches, a fountain, the garden with a pavilion and the park.