Dechanthof Freistadt

The Dechanthof stands in the Upper Austrian town of Freistadt as a three-storey four-wing building around an irregular rectangular courtyard. It serves as the parish office of the Roman Catholic parish and the seat of the deanery in the Mühlviertel region. First mentioned in 1354, it has housed priests and the dean while managing the parish’s three churches. Part of the building and a section of the town’s medieval defences remain protected monuments. The Dechanthof has been rebuilt several times since the 14th century. After a great fire in 1507 destroyed much of the town, parts were renewed around 1600. Carlo Antonio Carlone redesigned it late in the 17th century, and Johann Michael Prunner gave it its present façade about 1735. The south-west wing still shows late-Gothic details from the early 1600s. Inside, rooms display cross-ribbed vaults, late-Gothic shouldered doorways and Baroque stucco work by Carlone. Visitors enter through a rustic round-arched portal on the main baroque façade. Inside, a vaulted passage leads to a staircase with a late-Gothic stairhall. The east wing contains a hall with Carlone’s stucco of the Adoration of the Magi and a library open to the public. The north wing houses offices for church contributions and family counselling, while the west wing provides rooms for scouts and events. The irregular courtyard and remaining sections of the old town wall frame the building’s imposing presence.