Pišece Castle

Pišece Castle (German: Pischätz) stands on a hill (352 m above sea level) northwest of the village of Pišece in the Bizeljsko Hills, in the Municipality of Brežice. The castle was built by the Archdiocese of Salzburg; its vassal knights, the Pišečki family, are mentioned between 1266 and 1353, and the first surviving written mention of the castle dates from 1329. Later, the castle was managed by Salzburg stewards and leaseholders until Inocenc Moscon purchased it as a hereditary estate in 1595; however, the Archbishop of Salzburg retained supreme feudal rights over it until 1803. The Moscon family owned the castle until the end of World War II. The last owner, Alfred Moscon, was a Slovenian politician and member of parliament before World War II. After the war, the castle was nationalized; its rich furnishings were dispersed, and several families were settled there. The castle began to fall into disrepair after the war. From the original Romanesque castle design, a massive 36-meter-high residential tower has been preserved, featuring 2.5-meter-thick walls made of stone blocks laid in straight layers. Stonework features indicate construction around the year 1200 or in the first half of the 13th century. Within the complex, which reveals numerous major renovations, primarily Renaissance ones, the Romanesque castle chapel with a rebuilt apse is also partially preserved. In front of the castle is an English garden where several exotic trees grow, including three sequoias (circumference ranging from 80 to 450 cm), a catalpa (Catalpa sp.), plane trees (Platanus sp.), honey locusts (Gleditsia sp.), and a ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba).