Savoia Castle Savoia Castle or Škvorec Castle ( Squorz , Schkworetz ) , is a castle located in small market town of Škvorec , about east of Prague in the Czech Republic . It was first mentioned in historical sources in 1279 ( but more fully documented in 1404 ) . History . Early history . The founder , and maybe the builder too , was probably Domaslav ( " Domaslaus de Squorz " ) around 1279 , an important courtier and landed official , the butler of Queen Kunigunda of Slavonia ( 1262 ) and her food taster ( 1263 – 1269 , 1279 ) , Lord High Treasurer ( 1267 – 1278 ) and one of the ten Burgrave s of Prague Castle . From the castle he built , only the deep well is now preserved , cut in the granite rock , which was situated near to the early gothic palace - that standing on the site of the present school building . The coat - of - arms of Domaslav of Škvorec ( three vertical stripes ) , which cannot be found later in Central Bohemia , proving that the castle must have passed to another noble family not long after . The names of the owners until after 1450 are not now known . In the second half of 14th century , the castle was owned by the Olbramovic family of Prague . One of them , Olbram son of Menhart ( died around 1388 ) , installed the priest of the church in Horky , which already belonged to Škvorec by 1354 . Olbram son of Menhart was from 1356 the Reeve of Prague New Town and in 1373 - 1380 the Burgrave of Vyšehrad . In connection with Škvorec he is mentioned only two times : first as Olbram of Škvorec ( in Skworzecz ) in the records of visitation of the Prague archdeacon Pavel of Janovice from 1380 , and as Olbram son of Menhart of Škvorec a document from 1385 ( de Skworecz ) . After his death , his three sons Olbram , Pavel and Václav became the owners of Škvorec . The most important of them was Olbram : in 1377 he started to study at the Faculty of Law of Prague University . In 1379 he became the canon of Prague and Vyšehrad . Between 1389 - 1396 he was the provost of St . Apolinar in Prague New Town , and also the chancellor of the king ’ s brother Jan of Zhořelec . On 31 January 1396 , he became the Archbishop of Prague ( he was installed by Pope Boniface IX . ) . His brother Pavel was a Burgrave in Týn nad Vltavou ( 1397 ) , and Václav earned 500 marks of silver in the king ’ s service in 1396 . These successes of the three brothers had an influence on their building activity at Škvorec , because its early gothic castle didn ’ t conform to the needs of noblemen at the end of 14th century . According to the archeological , historical and building research made by architect J . Žižka , it appears that round 1400 the family of Olbramovic essentially enlarged the area of the castle and added to the buildings . Opposite the old early - gothic palace they built an oblong tower with a pointed - arched gate and with a small wicket , together with drawbridge s across the newly dug water - filled moat . Above it , east of the entrance tower , they built another gothic palace with a chapel , whose chaplain called Václav is noted in judgment roll of the Archbishopric of Prague in 1404 . Due to the building of the new palace , Škvorec thus had two palaces , as was faithfully recorded in the fideicommissum documents in 1654 . The archbishop with his two brothers owned Škvorec castle until 2 May 1402 , when he died . His two surviving brothers then divided the property amongst themselves . Next , Jan Nichilen of Prague bought the Václav ’ s share ( the rent from Škvorec Castle , half of the farmyard and some villages ) in 1411 , and before 1418 the owner of it was Jan of Klučov . The second half of property was still owned by Pavel of Škvorec until his death ( after 1418 ) . His widow Eliška ( Elisabeth ) married before 1422 Jan Ohnništko of Ohnišťany , who appropriated the second half of the property too . But in 1426 he violated the parliamentary peace , when he killed his ex - neighbor Prokop Trčka of Květnice in a duel in Prague . As a result he was brought to court and then executed . Eliška became a widow again and very soon she had big debts . Because of them , she had to sell the rent from Škvorec , Hostyň and the half of the market - town of Úvaly to Prokop Bervík of Malešice in the same year . But he sold it only a short time after to Vilém of Kounic , from whom it was bought by Petřík Olbrámovic ( shortly called Olbrámek ) , and thanks to this the whole property was again owned by the family of Olbramovic of Prague . Early modern history . The next important owner of Škvorec castle was Čeněk of Klinštejn the Crown Prosecutor , who bought it from the Olbramovic family in 1462 . He was a very significant person in the Bohemia of that time . He was not only the Crown Prosecutor , but also a Burgrave of Prague Castle ( 1451 – 1461 ) and of Vyšehrad ( 1467 – 1479 ) and in the years 1457 - 1481 he was the Queen ' s Prosecutor . In the time of his son Jan , in 1497 , King Vladislas II of Hungary made Škvorec into a market - town . After his death round 1509 , his brother Zdeněk inherited the castle . He had many lawsuits with his neighbours , townsmen and also with his nearest relatives , as did his son Jindřich , who died in the battles against the Turks in Hungary . After that , the Castle passed to brother of Jindřich ' s mother - Zikmund Smiřický of Smiřice . In about 1545 he started reconstructing the old castle and modernised it into a renaissance seat . During this reconstruction he probably built the western range with arcades and the building on the eastern side of the courtyard . As the fideicommissum records from 1618 tell , Albrecht Jan Smiřický of Smiřice had a vaulted hall known as " the stone hall " , lord ’ s apartment and also an armoury built in the castle . In other parts of the castle there were offices and rooms of the members of his estate government and on the ground floor there was some economic establishment . During the confiscation of his property in 1621 , Škvorec Castle fell into the hands of Albrecht of Valdštejn because his mother was from the Smiřický family . He sold it to Karl of Lichtenstein in 1623 . In the second half of the 17th century Jan Adam of Lichtenstein ordered his officials Šimon Karel Svoboda and Jan Kašpar Ouvalský to elaborate the urbary of his domain . So in 1677 The Golden Book ( Zlatá kniha , ) , which was written in Czech , was finished . The preserved records of the ' hejtman ' of Černý Kostelec , Captain Přech Svatkovský of Dobrohošť , shows that the Swedes plundered the castle and set it on fire on 27 November 1639 . During the fire the ceilings in some rooms in both palaces collapsed ( in one of them – in the upper palace – was the jail for the retainers in that time ) . The repair works appear to have been minimal : until 1654 only the upper palace was covered by a temporary thatched roof and no more reconstruction then continued . So for the rest of 17th century the Castle was known as a ruin . From the records of the Uhříněves Estate ( to which Škvorec belonged at that time ) it is known that the first part of the Castle was repaired by Kristian Minedi in 1710 , when he submitted accounts for repairing six rooms to the Estate government . This northern part of the castle became the seat of Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy , born of Lichtenstein ( died 1772 ) after 1729 . Later modern history . Škvorec Castle was still habitable in 1794 , but in the years that followed it started to decay again . Instead of reconstruction , the Castle was largely dismantled in 1860 - 1884 . The dilapidated northwestern range of the old castle was demolished first , then the western two - storied wing was taken down in 1883 . On the site of the ruin of the old gothic palace , the local school was built in 1890 . Of the whole castle only the rebuilt baroque southeastern part with the gatehouse tower was left , and also the old Castle well in the courtyard . The so - called ' New Castle ' stands opposite the old one . It comprises a large baroque one - storey building with a courtyard of farm buildings , the remains of an old fountain and a baroque gate . As the plans of the architect Josef Jägr from the Lichtenstein family archive in Vaduz testify , this new part of Škvorec Castle was built soon after 1791 .