Steinau Castle

Steinau Castle in Steinau an der Straße, Hesse, was a secondary residence of the Lords and Counts of Hanau. It is the earliest, largest, and best-preserved early Renaissance castle complex in Hesse.

The complex originated from a medieval castle, but nothing is known about its appearance. It may have been founded by the Fulda Abbey. At the time of written records at the end of the 13th century, the castle was initially in the allodial possession of the Counts of Rieneck. With the marriage between Ulrich I of Hanau and Elisabeth of Rieneck, the town and castle passed to the Lords of Hanau as a dowry. In later times, the castle, like the castles in Schwarzenfels and Windecken, was used as a dower house for Hanau countesses.

Parts of the curtain wall and the keep, a mighty tower with a square footprint and now a Baroque dome, which dominates the complex, are still preserved from the medieval complex. In the medieval defense system of the city of Steinau, it protected the most vulnerable side to the south, while the north of the city was protected by the then impassable Kinzig floodplain.

Steinau Castle is a pentagonal complex, which was probably based on early Italian Renaissance fortresses. The design is attributed to Count Reinhard zu Solms, guardian of Count Philipp III of Hanau-Münzenberg. A master builder from Steinau named Asmus was probably in charge of the execution.

Both the always dry moat with its high enceinte walls and the core complex are pentagonal, although the southern half-wing, demolished in the 19th century, is missing. Until then, the castle consisted of a closed, pentagonal ring of buildings. At four of the five corners of the enceinte are bastion-like utility buildings projecting into the moat with integrated stair towers; at the fifth corner is the field gate. At the two gatehouses there and in the middle of the north side, the moat was spanned towards the town and outwards with drawbridges. In the pentagonal courtyard there are four stair towers that provide vertical access to the buildings.

The complex was built in several construction phases, predominantly in the 16th century. The last expansion was a connecting building between the castle and the previously freestanding north gate to the town in the early 17th century.