Schloss Karlsberg (Sankt Veit an der Glan)

Schloss Karlsberg stands on a small plateau below Burg Karlsberg, southwest of St. Veit an der Glan in Carinthia. The building was erected in the second third of the 17th century and altered in the 19th century. It is protected as a monument. Karl Rudolf Freiherr von Wangler owned the castle and Herrschaft Karlsberg from 1635 to 1667. In 1687 Cardinal Johann Freiherr von Goëss acquired Karlsberg, which has remained in the Goëss family ever since. The four-winged, two-storey structure encloses a small rectangular courtyard. The upper-storey windows have lintels. The basket-arched portal on the west side bears the date 1697. Between its scrolled gable ends sits a cartouche with the Goëss family coat of arms. Inside, a wooden gallery on the south side holds a 1315 memorial stone from the ruined Burg Karlsberg, carved with the owl, the heraldic animal of the Auffensteiner. Two Roman reliefs and a marble Triton fountain from 1585, bearing the Khevenhüller arms, were brought here in 1948. The chapel occupies the slightly raised south-east corner of the castle. Its north-west corner carries a small bell-turret with lantern and onion dome. Johann Graf Goëss founded the chapel in 1728 and furnished it with a carved altar depicting Saint Charles Borromeo. The north wall holds a carved oratory topped by two angel figures supporting the double coat of arms of the 1696 deceased Cardinal of Gurk and Freiherr von Goëss. The sacristy contains a late-17th-century painted wardrobe.