Vrchotovy Janovice


Vrchotovy Janovice is a municipality and market town with a romantic castle surrounded by a large park in Benešov District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic.

Castle

The castle was founded in the Middle Ages in about 1350 as aGothic water fortress. Then it was rebuilt in a Renaissance and Baroque style until 1760. Prague architect Josef Mocker rebuilt it after 1879 in Neo-Gothic style, and Josef Zasche further rebuilt it around 1910 for the family of Baron Karel Boromejský Jan Ludvík Nádherný of Borutín, his wife Amalie Klein von Wisenberg and their three children Karel, Jan and Sidonie.
The last owner of the chateau was their daughter, Baroness Sidonie Nádherná, unconventional emancipated woman, a patron and organizer of cultural life. She hosted friends including Rainer Maria Rilke, Karl Kraus and Czech painter Max Švabinský.
In 1988 the National Museum in Prague opened a permanent exhibition at the castle about the Czech National Revival cultural movement of the 19th century.

People