House of Colloredo-Mannsfeld

The House of Colloredo-Mansfeld (German pronunciation: [ˌkɔlo:.ʀe:dɔ.ˈmans.fɛlt]) is an originally Italian noble family of which a branch came to Austria in the late 16th century.

Allegedly, Liebhart (Liobardo) of Waldsee came to Italy attending King Conrad II and about 1031 was enfeoffed by Patriarch Poppo of Aquileia with Mels Castle near Udine in Friuli.

Rudolph Joseph von Colloredo (1706-1788), Vice-Chancellor of Empress Maria Theresa, was appointed Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1763.

[1] The Colloredo-Mansfeld line emerged when his son Franz de Paula Gundakar von Colloredo married Princess Maria Isabella of Mansfeld in 1771 and was able to inherit her family's Bohemian estates with Dobříš Castle upon the extinction of the dynasty's male line in 1780, while the original Mansfeld possessions passed to the Prussian Duchy of Magdeburg.

In the Second Czechoslovak Republic about half of the family possessions of 60,000 hectares of forests and farmland was expropriated during a land reform.

After World War II, the family returned but only to face arrest and torture again, and subsequently expulsion from Czechoslovakia where they were again expropriated, this time "as Germans" under the Beneš decrees.