Dankwarderode Castle

The Romanesque castle on Burgplatz was Henry the Lion's palace and the seat of ducal power for the Welf dynasty in the 12th century. The building standing today is a careful 19th-century reconstruction on the original footprint, with the great hall — the Rittersaal — restored to something approaching its medieval grandeur.

The castle houses part of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum collection, including the original Henry the Lion bronze lion (1166) — one of the earliest monumental bronzes cast in medieval Europe — displayed under protective cover in the great hall. The replica outside on the pedestal is from 1858. The juxtaposition of the two, seen together, makes plain what 700 years of outdoor exposure does to bronze.

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Dankwarderode is one of those medieval buildings whose present form is entirely the product of 19th-century romantic reconstruction — the original castle was built by Henry the Lion in the 1160s, fell into disrepair over the following centuries, and was rebuilt stone by stone by the city in the 1880s as a monument to Welf dynastic memory. Inside it they placed the original 1166 bronze lion that Henry had commissioned, bringing it in from the square where exposure had begun to damage it.

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