Schloss Porcia

Castle Porcia in Spittal an der Drau in Upper Carinthia Austria become built in the 16th century. It is a Renaissance fort within the style of an Italian palazzo. It is one of the maximum beautiful Renaissance buildings north of the Alps. From 1534, the fort become constructed on behalf of Count Gabriel von Salamanca Ortenburg 1489 to 1539, the Spanish-born treasurer and confidant of Emperor Ferdinand I. Salamanca had acquired the County of Ortenburg from Ferdinand on March 10, 1524 and commissioned Italian architects with the making plans and construction of the fort.

It become finished most effective beneath his successors, more than 60 years later, 1597 to 98. The avenue facade and the courtyard with its columnar architecture and the 3-storey arcades are extra standard of an urban, Italian palazzo than of a fort in Carinthia. The castle garden in its present length become created within the nineteenth century. The family of Salamanca died in 1620. The county of Ortenburg and with it the fort initially handed into the ownership of the Burgerfamilie Widmann. This offered it in 1662 from Pordenone originating Italian noble own family Porcia, which bought at that time several possessions in Carinthia. Hence the call of the citadel.