FAMILY HISTORY
The Lobkowicz Family, among the oldest and most distinguished Bohemian noble families, has played a prominent role in Central European history for over six hundred years. Successive generations have held the titles: Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, High Chancellors of Bohemia, Dukes of Sagan and of Roudnice, and Princes of High Chlumec. On a scale unimaginable today, they commissioned magnificent architecture and ground breaking music - and collected paintings, manuscripts, books, musical instruments and decorative arts, that enhanced their numerous residences and increased their prestige in the courts and circles in which they moved and exerted power.
Early in the 17th Century, the Lobkowicz family began to assert its role in the Catholic inner circle of the Habsburg court prior to the start of the Thirty Years War. Zdenek Vojtech (1568-1628), created 1st Prince Lobkowicz, served the Emperors Rudolf II, Mathias and Ferdinand II as Chancellor. The marriage of Polyxena Pernstejn to the Prince, brought property (the Lobkowicz Palace at Prague Castle), important Spanish portraits and books (through her mother) and great political influence. The crucial Catholic victory at The Battle of the White Mountain in 1620 solidified the family’s fortunes and enabled the purchase of the Castle of Nelahozeves in 1623.
Their only son, Vaclav Eusebius, 2nd Prince Lobkowicz, served the Emperor Ferdinand III as a Member of the Imperial Council, and became one of the most influential European statesmen of the 17th Century. He raised his own regiment to fight in the Thirty Years War and subsequently held high appointments in Vienna as President of the Imperial War Cabinet (from 1652) and President of the Imperial Privy Council (from 1669). Among his most lasting accomplishments, however, were the family palaces he had reconstructed in the Baroque style by Italian architects and artists, including the Lobkowicz Palace in Prague and the immense Roudnice Castle, which served as the family seat until its confiscation in 1948.
Joseph Franz Maximilian (1772-1816) was created Duke of Roudnice in 1786 by the Emperor Joseph II. European civilization however will forever remember his name as the greatest of Beethoven’s patrons, for whom he provided a generous annual stipend. Consequently he received innumerable dedications including the 3rd (Eroica), 5th and 6th (Pastoral) symphonies as well as the Opus 18 String Quartets, the Triple Concerto, and the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte.
Maximilian Lobkowicz (1888-1967) a lawyer, politician and diplomat, was the last heir to occupy Roudnice Castle. He provided crucial support to the fledgling Czechoslovak state of 1918, in spite of its disallowing the use of titles and its redistribution of much inherited property. His service as Ambassador to the Court of St. James during the Second World War, led directly to the confiscation of the family’s properties and possessions by the Nazis. After 1948, all his properties were again confiscated, this time by the Communist regime.
Maximilian’s son, Martin, lived to see President Vaclav Havel sign three acts in 1991 that provided for the return of properties illegally confiscated by the Communists. Martin and his youngest son William, have subsequently undertaken the enormous task of tracing and reclaiming the many properties – their contents and above all the extensive collections and treasures they previously housed.
Today the magnificent Lobkowicz Collections are primarily divided between the Lobkowicz Palace Museum in Prague and the country estate at Nelahozeves Castle, where they are open to the public. The rich mixture of the family’s private and public spaces and the outstanding artistic patronage that provided their contents offer a unique experience for both the passing visitor and tourist as well as the most discriminating connoisseurs.