Dornburg

Dornburg, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Saxe-Weimar, romantically situated on a hill 400 ft. above the Saale, on the railway Grossheringen-Jena and 7 m. N.E. of the latter. Pop. 700. Dornburg is an ancient town, but is chiefly famous for its three grand-ducal castles. Of these, the Altes Schloss is built on the site of an imperial stronghold (Kaiserpfalz), once a bulwark against the Slavs, often a residence of the emperors Otto II. and Otto III., and where the emperor Henry II. held a diet in 1005; the Neues Schloss in Italian style of architecture, built 1728-1748, with pretty gardens. Here Goethe was often a guest, “healing the blows of fate and the wounds of the heart in Dornburg.” The third and southernmost of the three is the so-called Stohmannsches Rittergut, purchased in 1824 and fitted as a modern palace.