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Description
Castle of Rietberg - Pratval (Switzerland), August 2019

For quite a while, the road had been winding through a succession of tiny, tidy villages asleep in the afternoon heat of an eve of the Assumption : villages that, at this hour, seemed only peopled by cats and a few white-haired, wiry old men (Ernst Jünger types) tending their immaculate gardens. Leaving the car behind and following the brook upstream led to a sloping ground of vineyards and orchards, a kingdom of apple trees and squirrels. And, after a turn in the path, there it was : the old stronghold, towering over the drowsy hillside, renovated for a more modern age but still dreaming the dreams of its glorious and bloody past. Schloss Rietberg, somewhere in Europe.

The castle of Rietberg, built in the Middle Ages, is a fortress linked with some of the most illustrious families of the canton of Grisons, in Switzerland. During the 16th century, it became the property of Antoine de Travers, scion of a family which provided many a magistrate or officer, and himself a cavalry colonel who had fought for France during the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples and campaigns in the Netherlands. Afterwards, it was owned by other patrician dynasties, such as the Salis and the Plata families. The castle is mainly remembered for being the place where, in 1621, Pompée Planta, who supported the Catholic Austro-Spanish faction of the time, was assassinated by a group of men from the rival Protestant party, led by Jörg Jenatsch -- a footnote and one of the many casualties of the Thirty Years' War. The blow dealt to Planta is said to have been so violent that the axe went right through his body and got stuck in the wooden floor. The castle is still lived in today.
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Description
Castle of Rietberg - Pratval (Switzerland), August 2019

For quite a while, the road had been winding through a succession of tiny, tidy villages asleep in the afternoon heat of an eve of the Assumption : villages that, at this hour, seemed only peopled by cats and a few white-haired, wiry old men (Ernst Jünger types) tending their immaculate gardens. Leaving the car behind and following the brook upstream led to a sloping ground of vineyards and orchards, a kingdom of apple trees and squirrels. And, after a turn in the path, there it was : the old stronghold, towering over the drowsy hillside, renovated for a more modern age but still dreaming the dreams of its glorious and bloody past. Schloss Rietberg, somewhere in Europe.

The castle of Rietberg, built in the Middle Ages, is a fortress linked with some of the most illustrious families of the canton of Grisons, in Switzerland. During the 16th century, it became the property of Antoine de Travers, scion of a family which provided many a magistrate or officer, and himself a cavalry colonel who had fought for France during the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples and campaigns in the Netherlands. Afterwards, it was owned by other patrician dynasties, such as the Salis and the Plata families. The castle is mainly remembered for being the place where, in 1621, Pompée Planta, who supported the Catholic Austro-Spanish faction of the time, was assassinated by a group of men from the rival Protestant party, led by Jörg Jenatsch -- a footnote and one of the many casualties of the Thirty Years' War. The blow dealt to Planta is said to have been so violent that the axe went right through his body and got stuck in the wooden floor. The castle is still lived in today.
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