Toffen Castle () is a

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

country estate in

Toffen Toffen is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Bern-Mittelland (administrative district), Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Bern in Switzerland. It lies approximately 10 ...

Canton of Bern The canton of Bern, or Berne (; ; ; ), is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland. The bear is the heraldic symbol of the c ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

History

The construction date of Toffen Castle is unknown. It first appears in a record on 19 May 1306 when Johann von Bremgarten gave up his estates, which included Toffen and

Bremgarten Castle Bremgarten Castle () is a castle in the municipality of Bremgarten of the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance. History The first castle at Bremgarten was the ancestral home of the Barons of Bremg ...

s, to his uncles Heinrich and Ulrich von Bremgarten. In 1323 Peter von Gysenstein, a patrician from

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

, acquired the castle and Zwing und Bann right over the villagers of Toffen. The castle was inherited, through his daughter, by Johann Senn von Münsingen. In 1352 Ulrich "Keseli" von Toffen, a local noble, bought part of the estate. Three years later, he bought the remainder. His family held the castle and surrounding estates for almost one hundred years.Swiss Castles.ch
accessed 28 April 2014 After passing through several additional owners, in 1507 Bartholomew May (1446-1531) bought the estate. According to tradition, after the Battle of Novara, Bartholomew May brought the first bears to Bern's

Bärengraben The Bärengraben, or Bear Pit, is a tourist attraction in the Swiss capital city of Bern. It is a bear pit, or enclosure housing bears, situated at the eastern edge of the old city of Bern, next to the Nydeggbrücke and the River Aar. Although ...

or Bear Pit. Bartholomew expanded and renovated the old castle into a late Gothic country

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

. The castle stayed in the von May family until 1610 when it was sold to Loys or Elogius Knobloch. Knobloch brought in carpenters and artists from the

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

region to renovate the castle interior. The ''Bretzelistube'' still contains the rich

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

style carvings as well as later paintings by the Bernese artist Joseph Werner. Loys Knobloch's daughter from his first marriage, Anna, married Abraham von Werdt in 1616. After the death of her father in 1642, von Werdt became the

Freiherr (; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , ) and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in ...

over Toffen. The Toffen branch of the von Werdt family owned the castle for nine generations and today it is owned by Mrs. von May-von Werdt, who combines two family lines with extensive history at Toffen Castle. In 1671-73 Johann Georg von Wendt rebuilt the entire castle into a Baroque manor. He removed an entire story from the main building and replaced the roof. The old curtain wall and gate house was demolished. An elegant garden replaced the old courtyard. A western wing was added to castle, with a great dining hall. He commissioned the popular Bernese landscape painter,

Albrecht Kauw Albrecht Kauw (1621–1681) was a Swiss still-life painter, cartographer and a painter of Veduta, vedute. Biography Kauw was born in Strasbourg, then moved to Bern in 1640. He painted a large number of works for public buildings and for variou ...

to paint four paintings that depicted the "Castle and Lands of Toffen" in each of the four cardinal directions. Around 1750 Georg Samuel von Werdt expanded and renovated the castle again. Following the 1798 French invasion, and the creation of the

Helvetic Republic The Helvetic Republic (; ; ) was a sister republic of France that existed between 1798 and 1803, during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was created following the French invasion and the consequent dissolution of the Old Swiss Confederacy, ma ...

the owners of the castle lost their medieval rights to rule over, judge and punish the villagers. However, they retained ownership of the castle and it remains in private hands today.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Toffen Castle Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Bern Castles in the Canton of Bern

History

See also

References