Schloss Biberstein (Kärnten)

Schloss Biberstein stands at the southern entrance to Himmelberg in Carinthia. The building has a late medieval core and was remodelled in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is a three-storey structure with an open roof and bull’s-eye windows, arranged around a four-sided courtyard. The castle passed from Marchwart der Pybriacher to the Khevenhüller family in 1571. In 1662 Katharina Gräfin Lodron bought it for 118,000 gulden and made it the seat of a secondary line of her family. The Lodrons have owned it ever since. The entrance staircase is covered and has an iron grille made from 18th-century baroque grave crosses around 1920–25. Inside, the ground floor has ribbed vaults with 16th-century stucco ribs. One room on the first floor holds a stucco ceiling from about 1735, attributed to Kilian Pittner, depicting scenes from classical mythology. A masonry passage crosses the road to the castle chapel, whose altarpiece is a copy after Giovanni Lanfranco. The courtyard displays several boundary stones, including one from 1612 that once marked the borders between Ossiach, Prägrad and Biberstein.