Marienberg Fortress (Festung Marienberg)

Some information concerning the Marienberg Fortress for our english speaking friends:

Marienberg Fortress was the seat of the Würzburg bishops from 1250 on. They enlarged the medieval castle, transforming it initally into a fortified Renaissance palace and finally into a baroque fortress. Today it houses the Prince's Building Museum and the Main-Franconian Museum Würzburg and there is a splendid view of Würzburg from the Prince's Garden.
The hill on which it stands, the Marienberg, was first settled in the late Bronze Age. In the early 8th century the Franconian-Thuringian dukes built a small fort here. In around 1200, Bishop Konrad von Querfurt began to build an unusually large castle. Following the storming of the castle in 1631 by the Swedes, Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp von Schönborn built a circle of massive bastions to protect the Marienberg, which was completed in 1658.After the court was transferred to the town residence built in 1720 - 1744, the fortress was used for military purposes only. It was opened by rhe Bavarian Palace Department as a museum in 1938, only to be almost completely destroyed by fire in 1945 during the Second World War. In 1947 the Main-Franconian Museum opened its exhibition rooms. The laborious reconstruction of the Fortress completed in 1990 with the openinng of the Prince's Building Museum.

The picture shows the ditch between the Outer Höchberg Gate and the Inner Höchberg Gate.