Raudonė Castle construction works started in late 16th century, during the reign of King Sigismund II August. A new renaissance castle was built on the ruins of the old one by a German knight, Hieronymus Krispin-Kirschenstein. The castle has since been rebuilt many times. The 18th century Polish owners of the Raudone estate, the family Olędzki (Olendzki) h. Rawicz commissioned Wawrzyniec Gucewicz with a renovation of the castle. The next owner, the Russian Prince Platon Zubov, acquired the estate in the first half of the 19th century and his family transformed the castle yet again. Their architect was Cesare Anichini.
Today the building is an example of 19th century neo-Gothic architecture. Its last private owners were Sophia Waxell (a Zubov) and her Portuguese husband from Madeira, José Carlos de Faria e Castro. The original castle is the setting of an East Prussian legend known as 'The White Maiden of the Bayersburg'.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.