Schloss Nöthnitz

Nöthnitz Palace stands in the village of the same name, part of the municipality of Bannewitz, not far from Dresden's southern city limits. The present complex goes back to a medieval core that passed into the hands of the Saxon electors in the 15th century. The Renaissance building itself was constructed around 1630 under Heinrich von Taube. Architecturally, a U-shaped three-wing layout defines the look of the palace, consisting of a main building and two side wings. Its characteristic features are an octagonal stair tower with a spiral staircase in the courtyard and a groin vault on the ground floor, both dating from the first half of the 17th century. A large farmyard adjoins the palace courtyard, while the surrounding park combines elements of a Baroque garden with those of an English landscape park.

Historically, the palace is best known for the Bünau Library, which Count Heinrich von Bünau housed here from 1740. This collection, renowned far beyond the region, served as the working foundation for the celebrated art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann from 1748 to 1754, while he worked here as a librarian. A memorial plaque commemorates his work today. After the library was sold to the elector in the 18th century (it later became the nucleus of the Saxon State Library), the palace changed hands several times and underwent various alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries, including the addition of an upper story under Baron Rudolf Carl von Finck. During the Wars of Liberation, it even served as the headquarters of Tsar Alexander I and Prince Schwarzenberg in 1813.

After World War II and a fire in 1945, the estate was used as an agricultural school. Since the 1990s, the palace has gone through further changes of ownership and phases of renovation. Parts of the former Winckelmann memorial were moved to the Winckelmann museums in Stendal and Bannewitz. Preservation work is ongoing, with state funds provided for restoring the facades and roofs and rebuilding the historic roof structure in order to safeguard the building's historic fabric.