Castello di Duino

A noble residence still lived in by its princely family, Duino Castle rises over white limestone cliffs on the Gulf of Trieste. Its more than eighteen furnished rooms, oval staircase and tower above a Roman guard post preserve the character of a lived-in historic residence. The park carries the memory of the poet who began his best-known work here.

Why it matters

The castle remains a family residence and is directly linked to the origins of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies. In 1912 the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke stayed as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis and began writing the Duino Elegies at the castle. The castle has belonged to the della Torre e Tasso family since 1875. Part of its rooms opened to the public in July 2003, while retaining family furnishings and records.

What to notice

The castle’s more than eighteen furnished rooms contain family portraits, documents and memorabilia. Interior features include the oval staircase known as the Scala del Palladio and an 1810 fortepiano on which Franz Liszt played during his stays at Duino. The panoramic tower rests on a Roman guard post from the Diocletian period (third century AD); its terrace overlooks the sea and Gulf of Trieste.

The guest list includes Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Counts of Chambord, Johann Strauss, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Gabriele d’Annunzio and Paul Valéry. Below the cliffs, a white rock known as the Dama Bianca is associated with a local legend about a castellan who died for love.

Context and history

The present building was begun on the remains of a Roman military outpost after 1389, when the Walsee family, then lords of Duino, ordered a new fortification on the cliff edge. Through the 16th century the house passed from a prison use into residence for the Hofer family, Austrian captains of Duino, and around 1600 a Hofer daughter married Raimondo della Torre Valsassina, bringing the castle to that line. In 1660 Emperor Leopold I recognised the Thurn-Hofer Valsassina house as lawful owners. When Teresa, the last of that line, married into the Hohenlohe family in the mid-19th century, the stage was set for 1875, when Princess Marie zu Hohenlohe married Prince Alexandre von Thurn und Taxis of the Czech branch of that house.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made Duino a centre of European cultural life. Princess Marie, a writer and Rilke’s patron, hosted the poet; he completed the Elegies in Switzerland in 1922, and the work was published in 1923 and dedicated to her.