Schloss Oranienstein is one of the palaces of the House of Orange-Nassau, sited at Diez on the Lahn. It was built on the ruins of Dierstein Abbey between 1672 and 1681 for Countess Albertine Agnes of Nassau after she was widowed.
After the French Republican invasion destroyed the Dutch Republic in 1795, stadtholder William V, Prince of Orange and his family first fled to England, before settling in Oranienstein for several years. Here, William and his son William Frederick issued the Oranienstein Letters, recognising the Batavian Republic and renouncing their stadtholderate and territorial claims in the Netherlands in return for financial and territorial compensation elsewhere, granted by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte.
After the annexation of the Duchy of Nassau by Prussia in 1866, the palace was given to the Prussian army the following year. It is still today occupied by the Bundeswehr, together with adjacent barracks, but also houses a museum.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.