Castle Breg near Ribnica in the Dolenjska region and its architectural-historical significance

Abstract

The flatland castle was built about 1470 for the steward of the Ribnica Castle, Andreas von Lamberg (died in 1473) in place of a medieval manor house that was demolished during a Turkish incursion in 1469. It was designed as a heterogeneously constructed castle complex, surrounded by a circular moat, with an unattached defensive wall, and a higher, freestanding building in the centre. The building analysis has found the Castle Breg to be an interesting example of architectural development, featuring a hybrid layout where a single architectural phase merged the concept of anti-Turkish fortification or tabor on the one hand and a proto-Renaissance noble mansion built on a plain and exhibiting late-Gothic architectural details on the other. The construction of the Castle Breg ushered in an era of an extremely rich building and architectural activity of the Lamberg family in Carniola. Although the destructions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries left little trace of the castle, it is still possible to make a sufficiently reliable interpretation of its illustrative architectural design from the last third of the fifteenth century.