Lihtenberk Castle (, ) is a 13th-century castle ruin located in the

Municipality of Šmartno pri Litiji The Municipality of Šmartno pri Litiji (; ) is a municipality in the traditional region of Lower Carniola in southeastern Slovenia. The seat of the municipality is the town of Šmartno pri Litiji. The municipality is now included in the Central ...

in central

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

, directly adjacent to later

Bogenšperk Castle Bogenšperk Castle (; , ) is a 16th-century castle located in the Municipality of Šmartno pri Litiji in central Slovenia. It is best known for its association with the 17th-century scientist and natural historian Johann Weikhard von Valvasor, a ...

. It is best known for a minor association with the 17th-century historian

Johann Weikhard von Valvasor Johann Weikhard Freiherr von Valvasor or Johann Weichard Freiherr von Valvasor (, ) or simply Valvasor (baptised on 28 May 1641 – September or October 1693) was a natural historian and polymath from Carniola, present-day Slovenia, and a Li ...

, who owned the ruin and styled himself (among other things) "von Lichtenberg."

Architecture

Lihtenberk was a walled castle with a three-story residential palacium, remnants of which are the only elements still visible today.

History

The castle first appears in written sources in 1223, in a mention of its owner at the time, the

Aquileia Aquileia is an ancient Roman city in Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about from the sea, on the river Natiso (modern Natisone), the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times. Today, the city is small ( ...

ministerialis The ''ministeriales'' (singular: ''ministerialis'') were a legally unfree but socially elite class of knights, administrators, and officials in the High Middle Ages in the Holy Roman Empire, drawn from a mix of servile origins, free commoners, and ...

Albert von Lichtenberg. The knights of Lichtenberg had taken the castle from the knights of Andechs, who had previously taken it from the knights of Weichselberg. In 1250, the castle was recorded as ''castrum Liechtemberch'', in 1288 as ''castrum Leytemberch'', in 1338 as ''Pilgrimum de Liechtenberch'', and in 1393 and 1396 simply as ''Lyechtenberg''. Around 1288 the castle was temporarily occupied by Count Meinhard of Tyrol, who gave it out in fief, but the

Patriarchate of Aquileia The Patriarchate of Aquileia was an episcopal see and ecclesiastical province in northeastern Italy, originally centered in the ancient city of Aquileia, situated near the northern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It emerged in the 4th century as a m ...

soon intervened to revert the castle to its previous state of ownership. At the end of the 15th century, the castle was received as dowry by Boltežar the noble Wagen, imperial administrator of the castles of Hošperk by Planina and Šteberk in

Cerknica Cerknica (; , ''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 120.) is a town in the Karst region of southwestern Slovenia, with a population of 4,0 ...

, as well as lord of

Kostel Castle Kostel Castle () is a castle above the settlement of Kostel in southeastern Slovenia. It is located on a steep hill above the Kolpa River, not far from the Croatian border. History The site was originally occupied by a smaller fortification ...

near the

Kolpa The Kupa () or Kolpa ( or ; from in Roman times; ) river, a right tributary of the Sava, forms a natural border between north-west Croatia and southeast Slovenia. It is long, with a length of serving as the border between Croatia and Slovenia ...

River. By this time the castle was in a very poor state of repair, and the seat of the lordship was moved to newly built

nearby. The fate of Lihtenberk was sealed by the

1511 Idrija earthquake The 1511 Idrija earthquake ( or ) occurred on 26 March 1511 with a moment magnitude of 6.9 and a maximum EMS intensity of X (''very destructive''). The epicenter was near the town of Idrija (now in Slovenia), although some place it in ...

, which badly damaged the building; in 1630 its owner Georg Kheysell demolished what was left and used the materials for the consolidation and repair of Bogenšperk, a practice continued later in the century by Valvasor.

Sources

* Ivan Jakič, ''Vsi slovenski gradovi'' ("All Slovene Castles"), DZS, Ljubljana, 1997, p. 188
Bogenšperk Castle - official website
{{coord, 46, 1, 24.02, N, 14, 51, 28.28, E, type:landmark_region:SI, display=title Castles in Lower Carniola Ruined castles in Slovenia