Bučovice Castle

Yet the exhibition is also focused on the dramatic turn of the seventeenth century and its major representatives, namely on the generation of Karel the Elder of Žerotín and Prince Karel of Liechtenstein, who played key parts in the time of the escalated religious controversies, issuing into the revolt of the estates, whose defeat ended the fortunate period in the country’s history. In addition to the two aristocrats, friends from their youth, who, as a result of the tense social circumstances, ended up on opposite sides of the issue, many other remarkable figures were to be found within the ranks the Moravian estates – valiant soldiers, intellectuals, book and art enthusiasts, pious worshippers, politicians, refined courtiers, shrewd economists, as well as careerists and political schemers. The aim of the exhibition is to provide an insight into their lives – education, economy, pastimes, residences, and the everyday, so as to render a comprehensive image of the lifestyle of their time. However, the Bučovice Chateau itself remains the most important “exhibit” of the presentation – one of the incunabula of Renaissance art in Moravia, and at the same time a jewel of European Late Renaissance architecture, whose walls hold the story of Renaissance aristocracy up to this day.