Palast Hohenems

Palast Hohenems in Hohenems, Austria, is a mid‑16th century Renaissance residential palace built for the Counts of Hohenems within the political landscape of the Holy Roman Empire. Commissioned by Cardinal Mark Sittich III von Hohenems in 1562, the building became the principal family residence and stands among the most important Renaissance structures in western Austria. The house grew out of the Hohenems family’s rising status after Emperor Ferdinand I elevated them to the Imperial countship in 1560, a promotion that contemporaries linked to close ties with the newly installed pope.

Work on the palace shell took place between about 1562 and 1567, and a second‑floor ceiling bears the date 1565. Cardinal Mark Sittich spent much of his time in Rome while directing building efforts, and the early phase established the core regular plan around a rectangular courtyard. In the early 17th century the complex was substantially enlarged during the rule of Count Kaspar von Hohenems, his nephew, with building activity chiefly between 1603 and 1610.

The house remained with the Hohenems line until the death of the last ruling count, Franz Wilhelm III, in 1759. Through his daughter’s marriages the property passed into the Harrach family and later into the Waldburg‑Zeil line. In 1840 the palace was adapted for military use as barracks. From 1882 Count Clemens Waldburg‑Zeil carried out renovation and the family returned to occupy the residence. Members of the Waldburg‑Zeil family who lived in the palace include Georg, who married Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska in 1912, and from 1954 Franz Josef.

During the Second World War parts of a major Vienna art collection were moved to the palace for safekeeping by Count Anton Lanckoroński. In 1947 a severe fire struck the building and those stored collections, destroying an estimated 120 works and causing further damage whose full extent could not be established at the time. The palace has remained in private hands and today continues as the Waldburg‑Zeil family residence while parts of the building serve commercial functions.

Palast Hohenems is also the place where two medieval manuscripts of the Nibelungenlied were found. The so‑called C manuscript was written around 1220 by an Alemannic scribe from the Upper Rhine who copied from an earlier Bavarian exemplar. The two manuscripts appear to have entered Hohenems in the 15th or 16th centuries, with the C manuscript rediscovered in 1755 and the A manuscript in 1779. Both left Hohenems in 1803 and then passed through several private and institutional hands; the A manuscript was sold to the Royal Court Library in Munich and the C manuscript eventually entered collections now held in Karlsruhe.