Lysá nad Labem Castle

Description

Lysá nad Labem was firstly mentioned in the Chronica Boemorum, with its existence mentioned in 1034. In the 13th century, a castle was built here and until the reign of the Luxembourgs, the town was property of the Czech queens. Since 1291, there has been evidence of Lysá being a town. In that year, Queen Judith of Habsburg issued a charter to unite the settlements of the Lysá estate into one economic unit.

During the Hussite Wars the town suffered a lot. At the turn of the 15th and 16th century, the Smiřický family of Smiřice rebuilt the dilapidated castle into a late-Gothic castle. In 1548, Emperor Ferdinand I added Lysá to the intimate dominion as a hunting centre. After a large fire, he had the castle rebuilt in the Renaissance style.

The sustainable development of the town was stopped by the Thirty Years' War. In 1647, Lysá was acquired by the empire general Johann von Sporck and then the town began to flourish. After the general's death, his son Franz Anton von Sporck began to reign. He made the most important changes in 1696 when the Augustinian monastery was restored and the new parish church and the Chapel of Three Kings were built.