Herberstorff Palais

The Palais Herberstorff, also known as Freyspurghof or Freyspurger Hof, is a listed building in the middle of the historic old town of Bad Radkersburg and, with its three-story Renaissance arcaded courtyard, is one of the most striking buildings in the region.

Today, Palais Herberstorff bears the house number Langgasse Nr. 27 and, with its neoclassical facade from 1803 and its two-row window front, faces Radkersburg's main square. Access to what is probably the most beautiful arcaded courtyard in the city is possible via a side portal from Dechanthofgasse. With its west wing, the building touches the medieval wall ring, which belonged to the former city fortifications, and leans against the massive, somewhat protruding so-called Obal Tower, a defensive tower also dating from the Middle Ages, which at the time guarded the southern area of the Pfaffen Bastion. As early as September 1952, the magnificent building was placed under monument protection as the city's first private house and is currently used as a residential and commercial building.

Hartwig von Monsberg was one of the patrons of the city of Radkersburg in the last decades of the 13th century. As the provincial burgrave of the city, he was mentioned around 1290 and presumably died here after 1294. Apparently since this time, the knightly family of Monsberg owned a free court in the city of Radkersburg, endowed with noble privileges, where they lived for a longer period and acquired wealth.

When the Monsberg family died out around 1410, the Stickelberg family, who were related to them, acquired the Radkersburg free court. Leuthold von Stickelberg bequeathed the town house and the associated rent, which was free property, to his cousin Konrad. His daughter Barbara von Stickelberg brought the estate as a dowry to her husband Heinrich von Enzersdorf in 1432. Wilhelm, a son from this marriage, was mentioned in 1459 as the landlord of the "Enzersdorferische Freihof" and in 1527 the estate was in the hands of Veit von Enzersdorf. His heirs had the income of the estate re-estimated and a rent survey drawn up in 1542. In 1580, Wolf Christian von Enzersdorf sold the estate with the urban noble seat to the married couple, Baron Karl von Herberstorff and his "housewife" Anna Susanne, née Liechtenstein.

Herberstorff and his wife, who already owned property in the Radkersburg region, including the Prentlhof located immediately outside the city, had the old manor house demolished and commissioned the master builder Giovanni Battista della Porta de Riva to erect the mighty three-story building with the magnificent arcaded inner courtyard.

A coat of arms plaque, preserved on the facade of the north wing in the inner courtyard of the house, commemorates the builder and his wife. It shows on the left the coat of arms of Herberstorff, a four-spoked mill wheel with eight blades, and on the right, that of Liechtenstein-Murau, two diagonally right black bars in a silver field. The memorial stone bears the following inscription:

THIS * HOUSE * WAS * BOUGHT * BY * THE * NOBLE * AND * STRICT * LORD * CARL * VON * HERBERSTORFF * AND * LADY * ANNA * SVSANNA * VON * HERBERSTORF * A * BORN * LADY * VON * LIECHTENSTAIN * VON * MVERAV * HIS * LAWFUL * WIFE * IN * THE * 80TH * YEAR * AND * THUS * IN * GOD'S * NAME * BUILT * TOGETHER * MAY * ALMIGHTY * GOD * GRANT * A * BLESSED * EXIT * AND * ENTRY * AMEN * 1583