The story of this place
Founded around 1249 by the Bohemian king Přemysl Otakar II, Špilberk crowns a hill above Brno and long guarded Moravia against Swedish and other sieges. In the late 18th century Emperor Joseph II turned it into a brutal prison, and under his successors it earned a grim European fame as the 'dungeon of nations' — a place of chains and darkness where rebels against Habsburg rule from across the empire were confined. Italian carbonari, Polish and Hungarian revolutionaries, and Czech patriots suffered in its damp casemate cells; the poet Silvio Pellico wrote of his years here. In 1939–1945 the Gestapo again used it as a prison. Today it houses the Brno City Museum.