No 39326
Castles and manors
Castles and manors Latvia, Krāslava

The castle of the Plater dynasty

There are several buildings from the estate that survive to the present day and were built by the Plater dynasty of noblemen.  The old mansion that is on the side of the Count Plater Street was built in 1759 on the banks of the Jāņupīte River.  The Baroque building was designed by an architect from Venice, Antonio Parazzo.  Later the mansion was rebuilt, and after a new castle was erected, the Plater family spent its summers on the first floor of the old building.  The second and third floors had a library with some 20,000 books.  The noblemen managed to move most of the contents of the library to safer locations during World War I, when the library as such was destroyed.  Work on the new castle of the Krāslava Estate (on the upper part of the Daugava River Valley) began in 1756 (architect Domenico Parazzo).  Initially it was in the Baroque style, but reconstruction at the turn of the 18th century involved Classicism.  Unique Rococo wall paintings with views of Rome have been discovered in the building.  These were based on samples from castles in Poland and were painted during the 1760s and 1770.  A high school used the new castle until the 1970s.  Then the building was abandoned and gradually turned into a ruin.  More recently there has been major renovation of the castle’s façade, and it now has a good appearance.  Surrounding the structure is a romantic landscape park that dates back to the mid-18th century.  It is on the hillocks of the Daugava River Valley and the valleys that cross it.  An artificial grotto has been restored, and a statue of a lion stands guard over the site.  The stairway has been placed in its historical location, and the park features pathways and a yard.

Distance from countries capital city264