Switzerland · Restored
Château de Muzot
Château de Muzot is a 13th-century fortified manor house near Veyras in Switzerland's Rhone Valley. In the 20th century it was owned by patron Werner Reinhart and was the home of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who completed major works there in 1922.
Its prime
1275
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1275
What Château de Muzot looked like in its prime.
A compact, tall rectangular stone manor with a pronounced crow-stepped (stepped) gable on the main façade; pale grey rubble masonry with ashlar window surrounds; a single prominent two-light mullioned window set in the upper half of the wall; several narrow vertical slit windows (arrow loops) pierced the stone; a low arched entrance beneath a projecting wooden balcony or gallery draped in vines opens onto a small gravel courtyard framed by trees, with distant Alpine ridges beyond.
Its story
The story of Château de Muzot.
A Thirteenth-Century Fortified Manor Near Veyras
Muzot — recorded also as Maison Muzot and as Muzot Castle — is a fortified manor house of the 13th century near Veyras, in Switzerland's Rhone Valley. The site falls within the commune of Noble-Contrée and is listed as a Swiss cultural property of class B, of regional significance.
Werner Reinhart's Rent-Free Tenant, 1921-1926
In 1921 the manor was bought by Werner Reinhart, a Swiss merchant and patron of the arts, who invited the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) to live in it rent-free. Muzot was Rilke's home from 1921 to 1926, the last years of his life.
The Elegies Finished and the Sonnets Written
Rilke had been at the Duino Elegies — ten long poems on deeply mystical and philosophical themes — for ten years of work and delays, and had fallen into a long silence caused by severe depression. In a few weeks of February 1922 at Muzot he finished them, and wrote the whole of the Sonnets to Orpheus besides. Both collections were published in 1923.
The series of letters he wrote while completing the Elegies included one to Baladine Klossowska, his lover at the time, and one to Lou Andreas-Salomé, a former lover. To Andreas-Salomé he wrote: "I went out and stroked the little Muzot, which protected it and me and finally granted it, like a large old animal." Muzot appears again in the poem cycle Sonnets from China (1936) by the British poet W. H. Auden (1907-1973), who was inspired by Rilke: the reference there to stroking "that little tower" is Muzot, and derives from that same series of letters.
Step inside
6 places to explore in 1275.
The record describes 6 distinct spots at Château de Muzot, including the full exterior approach. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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