The Gardens of Kromeriz

Chateau "Podzámecká" Garden

Podzamecka Garden with its area of 54 hectares, on one hand took advantage of the chateau northern front face, which stands in the garden parterre adjacent to the portico once used as a large balcony for the ground floor, on the other hand it had developed all the features and possibilities of a landscaping park. The nearby flow of the Morava river with its branches helped to enrich the park with various water sheets, including the Chotek Pond on the north. The scenery of the place has been ever-changing. The Long Pond on the western side offered a possibility to emise around on boats, or to skate in wintertime. The shorter bank of the pond gave the locality to the small unpretentious Fishermen Cottage constructed by Křoupal of Grunberk. The northern part of the Podzámecká garden is flown around and bounded with the river of Morava, forming thus the monolithic unit with the surrounding landseape.

Giardinetto, situated next to the Colloredo Collonade at the side facade of the chateau, was erected on the filled-up moat. Its Italian terrace arrangement should represent the "giardino segrego" (detached garden) or the "giardino segréto" (private garden). The Romantic renewals and re-arrangements in the rest of the Podzámecká Garden, during the reign of Archbishop and Archduke Rudolph (1819 - 1831) change the garden into the landscaping park. Several sculptures of athletes and wrestlers were moved from Flower Garden. The statue of Lying Neptune even changed the source of water it had been sprinkling out before - now, when the statue was connected to the river of Morava flow, the Neptune was renamed to Moravus. The garden was decorated with antique and gothic ruins. The visitor might be surprised at sight of the artificial hermitage made of the wooden frame covered with a cloth. A. Arche, the architect in services to archbishop Chotek, created the pure and sensitively laid-out classicist works. The architect continued and developed his activity further during the reign of the cardinal Maxmillian Sommerau-Beck (1836 - 1853). Thus, the year 1846 finally saw the new-born semicircular gallery called " Pompeian Collonade" because of the busts delivered right from Pompeii. The collonade was then accompanied with a fountain and small pond to reflect the elegant building in its surface. A. Arche also designed some technically sophisticated structures, such as the Silver Bridge, Lantern Bridge and Vase Bridge. The rest of his works tried to keep abreast with the fashionable empire architecture.

Chinese Pavilion was built on the bank of the Wild Pond, the glacis height was equipped with the contact boards actuating the small bowing figurines of the Chinese. The Podzámecká Garden is primarily rich with its vegetative beauty and plentitude: the experts have recorded 48 coniferous and 153 broadleaved species. The plane-trees are probably the oldest foreign trees of all. Generally, various species from Southern Europe, North America or East Asia can be found here. The "novelty" of the Podzámecká Garden is the ornamental tree described by A.M. Svoboda in 1996 as a cultivar. A sturdy tree, just by the Ginkgo Biloba, accommodates the witches' broom, the scion of which was planted bringing forth small trees with rounded tops. One of the ginkgo species was named to tribute the house of Choteks, the family of archbishop F. M. Chotek, henceforth the "Ginkgo biloba L. cv. Chotek".

Flower Garden, also called Libosad

has somewhat come nearer to the town, when the city forts and walls were torn down and the houses built instead reached the Libosad. The design and lay out were drawn up by Anton Arche, the implementation took place in the years 1840 - 1845. The Libosad is another work of extraordinary value. Without any attempts to violate or modify the original layout of the early-Baroque Libosad, its side parts were supplemented with another buildings, namely: the tropical stove, cold greenhouse, residential and administration buildings. This quasiquadrangle created a yard inside giving to the Libosad and Rotunda standing in its center. The entrance was emphasised with a portal embedded into a shallow three-axis buttress. The buttress is capped with a triangle tympanum carrying the gilted Archbishop's indicium. The yard is fitted with garden furniture made from cast-iron in the Archbishop's ironworks factory in Frýdlant. The vases furnished with the Archbishop's indicium and benches in the secondary rococo style all look smart and modern coated with white color.
Libosad Rotunda Linbosad Rotunda is an octagonal building intersected by the axis of garden heading from the original front gate just in the middle of the Collonade. The gallery gangway situated in the ground floor of the Rotunda is subdivided to the number of entrances and four grottos with waterworks. The central room is covered with a perking cylindrical drum enclosed with a dome and lantem (This is the place where professor Nábělek suspended the Foucaulťs Pendulum to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth). Sumptous stucco decorating the interior of the Rotunda was created by Italian artists. The stucco ornamentation is the work of Quirico Castelli and Carlo Borsa. The works on paintings commenced in 1674. Caropoforo Tencalla expanded therein various scenes taken from mythology, such as Rape of Europa, Perseus and Andromeda, Rape of Prosperina, Hercules with Nessos and Dejaneira, Pan and Syrinx, Rape of Ganymedos etc. The statues of Satyrs in the Rotunda and Four Seasons Allegory were made by Michal Mandík. Originally, the entrances to the Rotunda were always kept opened and it was possible to take shelter and rest in the adjacent small rooms. These retirades were inspired by the Spanish gardens. The decorative brodeirres were in turn designed according to their French counterparts. The Italian gardens gave rise to a large number of fountains and other waterworks. These were fed with a sophisticated water-conduit system designed by F. Lucchese. When the visitor stepped onto the certain flagstone, all of the sudden the water would have sprinkled down his astonished gaze. Bishop Liechtenstein got acquainted with this fashionable amusement during his stay in Salzburg. The chateau library enshrines the book by Causus "Hortus Palatinus" with numerous examples of "water-jests" hidden in the Heidelberg garden. The chateau library also stores the narrative publication "Villa Pamphilia ...", issued in Rome, on the Pamphilli villa. The building was designed and constructed in the period of 1644 - 1652 by the nephew of the pope Innocent X. Number of architectural elements and aspects appearing in the then hot-fashioned garden was adapted to the Kroměříž Libosad.
When the Libosad had been built up to comfort the highest requirements and ideas of those times, the Bishop encouraged U.F.A.Heger, the Canon, to prepare and set out a luxurious publication. The album on Libosad was published in 1691 encompassing the preface written in German, pull-out prospects based on the drawings by J. M. Vischer, and etchings by Justus van den Nypoort, the Utrecht painter, who served to the Bishop in years 1690-1692. That time, all of the planted wood species were grown enough and Libosad could finally dazzled its visitor with the well-balanced complex embodying the verdure, architectural elements, sculptures, paintings and water sheets (both the serene and dynamic). The visitor was invited to step inside the garden by the sign hung on the front gate, reading in Latin the following paraphrase: Come in and behold the places once barren, fallow and savage, now transferred in pains to the flourishing garden that is to pass forth to our descendants.

Flower Garden is an axially oriented late-Renaissance or, as a matter of fact, manneristic garden, founded in 1665 on the oblong rectangular platform with dimensions 300 m x 485 m. The front gate verges into the extraordinary long and monumental gallery, called collonade. 224 m in length forms the phenomenal shape of the architectural element. The ground platform of Libosad was interlaced with a complex water distribution system supplying the ponds, fountains, the lake by the aviary, waterworks, and the sophisticated machinery-like unit called the "water-jests" located in the interior of the central Rotunda. The axis of Libosad is stretched from the front gate, across the Rotunda to the skittleground equipped with the water-jest as well. Along the main axis line there were the mazes and rectangular ponds stocked with carp and trout fries. Further on, the axis runs over two artificial HUMMOCKS called the Strawberry Hills, the popular composition elements. The occurrence of these dates back to the antique gardens, e.g. the Chorsabad Garden. The then hummocks a1ready had summer-houses, which was also the case in Kroměříž. Another stage of the axis were the amusement facilities of the garden.
Amongst which falls the AVIARY - BIRD'S CAGE built on the holm; the Rabbit-Hole Hill giving shelter to the rabbits which occasionally were driven out by the controllable water flow to cheer up the spectators and hunters. The peak of the hill was throned with the statue of Diana, whereas the sculptures symbolising four continents were scattered around the hill. Then follows the Pheasantry, farmyard and Orangery with its pool guarded by the sculpture of Lying Neptune, later on re-erected in Podzámecká Garden and re-named Moravus. From here the way took you back to the Collonade. The COLLONADE is located inside of the corridor offering a space for long walks in times of rain and storms. The carrels of the Collonade are decorated with 44 antique statues in abovelifesize, another 46 busts rest on the arcade pillars - the works by M. Mandík, M Zurn and others. The shorter heads of the Collonades are panelled with carrels originally bejewelled with the by-wall fountains and waterworks. Several words breathed out in a low voice will clearly pass from this place and "walk" to the other side of the Collonade. It is the artistic reminiscence of the antique nymph Echo, tormented and exhausted so much in her endless pilgrimage for unrequited love that only her voice was all that remains, hence the term "echo" took its origin from. The side snail-like caracol will take us to the roof terrace where one can admire the colourful brodeirres of flowers in the parterre and get bewitched by the well-trimmed greenery walls overwhelmed only by the sprinkling FOUNTAINS.