Schlossberg#

Schlossberg Hill in Graz (Styria), alt. 473 m, formerly barren rough isolated Dolomite rock, now partly park-like layout, rises 122 m high on the plain of the left bank of the River Mur above Graz. Until the 19th century northern cornerstone of the town fortification, today surrounded by the river. Pre-historic settlement is very likely. A small fortification from the early Middle Ages (from Carantanian times) might have given Graz its name ("gradec" = small fortress). Small fort from the 2nd half of the 10th century; around 1125/1130 a fortress was built on the northern part. 1164 called "castrum Graece", the name "Schlossberg" has been used the 16th century. New fortification built in Italian style between 1544 and 1588 by D. dell´ Allio and others. From then on the Schlossberg hill was the most important and impressive fortification in Inner Austria; besieged by the French in 1809, condemned to demolition in the Treaty of Schoenbrunn. The citizens saved the Stallbastei, Fernbergerbastei and Buergerbastei bastions, the chapel of St. Thomas and the clock and bell towers; area transformed into a park in 1839. The Schlossberg Bahn funicular railway was built in 1895. The casemates were transformed into an open-air stage for music and theatre performances in 1937.

The clock tower (28 m high, 13th century, received its current form 1559-1569) is the landmark of Graz. The Renaissance bell tower of 1588 boasts the largest bell in the province of Styria, the so-called "Tuerkenglocke" (Turks´ bell or "Lisl"), cast by Mert Hilger in 1587. The "Starcke-Haeuschen" (now restaurant), surrounded by a vineyard, dates from the period of Romanticism (around 1820). The Cerrini-Schloessl (1820) is the location of artists´ apartments and the apartment of the "Grazer Stadtschreiber" (writer-in-residence). The bronze lion of the Major-Hackher monument (2nd cast by W. Goesser 1965) was put up in remembrance of the unsuccessful attempt of the French to besiege the Schlossberg Hill in 1809; Tuerkenbrunnen fountain (94 m deep), sunk into the rock in 1554-1558.