I am a fan of frescoes so when I read that the Knight’s Hall in Brežice Castle had a pretty amazing display of frescoes I included Brežice as an overnight stop on my tour of Slovenia. Similar to many fortifications whose history dates back to the 13th century, Brežice Castle has a long and storied history, which I won’t recount in detail here. The event critical to this post is the 1694 purchase of the castle by Count Ignatz Maria Attems, a fancier of baroque art who had the interior walls painted by local artists to depict scenes from Greek and Roman Mythology.
In addition to those frescoes in the Knight’s Hall, the frescoes in the Chapel of Saint Cross have a more religious flavor with scenes linking the four elements (earth, fire, air, and water) with four evangelists (Luke, Mark, John, and Matthew).
Since 1949, the castle has also been home to the Lower Sava Valley Museum, with a focus on the history and people of the region. Interestingly, the displays throughout the Museum echoed the frescoes in the Chapel of St. Cross insofar as they emphasized the importance of each of the four elements in the archeological and cultural development of the Lower Sava Valley.
I only provide a sampling of the frescoes, mostly wide shots to try to demonstrate how expansive they are. If you are a fan of frescoes and find yourself in Slovenia, you might consider a stop in Brežice.
The frescoes linking the four earth elements with the evangelists are located at the four corners of the Chapel of St. Cross. Here is the evangelist Luke with the Ox, representing Earth
There was a group of cyclists on a guided tour of the Museum. The bikes were parked in the inner courtyard, but I only spotted glimpses of the cyclists as they passed through Knight's Hall
