Petronell Castle

Petronell Castle (also Traun Castle) is a castle in Petronell-Carnuntum, a market town in the Lower Austrian district of Bruck an der Leitha.

Petronell Castle was rebuilt between 1660 and 1667 by Dominico Carlone (c. 1615–1679) in the form of a four-winged castle complex for the Abensperg-Traun family in the early Baroque style, following earlier structures (medieval castle, Renaissance castle). The Baroque building was firmly in Italian hands; the brothers Ambrosius and Giorgio Regondi, master stonemasons from Kaisersteinbruch, received large commissions. Kaiserstein was used for the grand staircase, the two columns supporting the tower, window frames, the balustrade, ... and finally the stone parts for the portal. Here, the stucco artists Giovanni Castello and Giovanni Piazoll, the fresco painter Carpoforo Tencalla, the foreman Marcello Ceresola, Thadeo Piro, for painting and decorating the doors in the Sala terrena, and the master builder Carlo Canevall completed the construction.

In 1683, the castle was set on fire by the Turkish army advancing on Vienna, and was rebuilt from 1690 under Otto Ehrenreich I von Abensperg-Traun. The ceiling of the ballroom had to be renewed after the fire caused by the Turkish army and re-frescoed by Johann Bernhardt von Weillern, as the falling roof structure destroyed both the ceiling construction and Tencalla's fresco during this fire. Both the architectural painting on the walls of the ballroom created by Tencalla and Weillern's ceiling fresco were, according to recent investigations, about 80% overpainted during two restorations (the last around 1950). According to the investigations, the fresco painting of the walls (Tencalla) is preserved in very good condition under the overpaintings. The ceiling fresco was restored in 2011/12.

Between 1830 and 1850, both the exterior facade and the courtyard facade (the latter only to a lesser extent) were redesigned. The room layout and a large part of the windows were also redesigned and altered between 1830 and 1850.

The castle was in the possession of the Abensperg and Traun family for 17 generations and was sold to a private investor in 2006.

The castle is a three-story building around a large courtyard with a grand staircase and four octagonal corner towers. One enters the castle courtyard, which features a richly structured Baroque facade, via a masonry bridge, through the Baroque stone portal. The grand staircase (under the clock tower with a conical roof) leads into the large ballroom (360 m²). Among the attractions are particularly the Fresco Hall (ballroom), the Sala terrena, the Golden Ancestral Hall, and the Hunting Room.

The coloring of the courtyard (pink/grey/yellow) was determined by the Federal Monuments Office in 1974, after various investigations, to be the definitive one.