The Maribor city castle was built in the end of the 15th century as an administrative mansion of provincial princes. Until 1620, when it was bought by the Khisl family, it was ran by administrators ...and leasers, which mostly took care just for collecting tribute and less for the image and the function of the castle. The castle became a noble residence of the city in its new and magnificent image only with the Khisl and then the Brandis family. This image culminates in the middle of the 18th century, when a mighty Baroque staircase was added by the Brandis family. In the second half of the 19th century, when the Brandis family left, gradual decay of the castle started. It passed from one hand into another, the huge building meant nothing but costs to different owners, and that was also represented in the inside image of ones very important building of the city. Total decay was stopped by the Municipality of Maribor, which bought it in 1933 and intended for a museum.
There are few literature and sources for early periods of the castle administration, and so was the function of the castle. Besides Jože Koropec, who in his debates about the Maribor land dominions wrote about administrators and leasers of the castle, there was also Jože Curk, who dealt with the castle and its administrators while describing the most important historical buildings in the city. The material about the owners of the castle (the Khisl and the Brandis family) from 1620 till the end of the 18th century is kept in the Styrian land archives, in the Brandis family archives and includes more than 40 archive boxes. It is still unworked, but the thorough study of the material could very precisely reconstruct the way of life of the Maribor aristocracy (at least of the Khisl and Brandis family) from the second half of the 17th until the end pf the 18th century. The majority of the material of the Brandis family in the 19th century is unfortunately missing, so it is probably still in the private possession of its descendants.
This article is just a small peace of the history of the Maribor city castle, its leasers and owners. It is again a reminder of yet unused sources of the Brandis family archives. The thorough study of that fund could give a complete image of the history of the castle and especially its inhabitants.
