Karlsberg Castle

Karlsberg Castle is located on a small plateau below Karlsberg Fortress southwest of St. Veit an der Glan in Carinthia. The building, erected in the second third of the 17th century and altered in the 19th century, is a protected monument.

The builder of the castle was Karl Rudolf Freiherr von Wangler, who owned Karlsberg Fortress and dominion from 1635 to 1667. In 1687, Cardinal Johann Freiherr von Goëss acquired Karlsberg, which has been in the possession of the Goëss family ever since.

Karlsberg Castle is a four-winged, two-story building that encloses a small, rectangular courtyard. The windows of the upper floor have a lintel. The basket-arched portal on the west side of the castle is marked with the year 1697. Between the curved gable ends is a cartouche with the coat of arms of the Counts Goëss.

Inside the castle, on the south side, there is an open, wooden corridor, in which a memorial stone from 1315 is located, originating from the fortress that has been in decay since the 17th century. It shows the eagle owl, the heraldic animal of the Auffensteiner. Furthermore, there are two Roman relief stones, as well as the marble Triton fountain, created in 1585 and adorned with the Khevenhüller coat of arms, transferred from Hunnenbrunn Castle in 1948, and various spolia from the old Karlsberg Fortress.

In the southeast corner of the castle, built somewhat elevated, is a chapel, above whose northwest corner a roof-turret-like bell tower with a lantern and onion dome is placed. The chapel was donated in 1728 by Johann Graf Goëss and equipped with a small, carved altar with a painting of Saint Charles Borromeo. On the north wall of the chapel room is an oratory adorned with carved ornamentation, crowned by two carved angel figures holding the double coat of arms of the Cardinal of Gurk and Freiherr von Goëss, who died in 1696. In the sacristy stands a cabinet built at the end of the 17th century with painted wings.