Lichtenau Fortress

Because of the location of Lichtenau as a tactical outpost of the Imperial City of Nuremberg within the territory of the margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach there was frequently tension and destruction as a result of warlike conflicts.

The Imperial City of Nuremberg had a completely new castle built (by Wolf Jacob Stromer,[1] probably based on older plans by the architect, Antonio Falzon)[2] for 194,000 guilders.

The last major attack on the fortress was in 1688, in a raid by troops of the French "sun king", Louis XIV.

He, however, broke the tradition of handing it over without a fight and fought back, whereupon the French gave up storming the fortification.

Lichtenau Fortress is a splendid example of Renaissance architecture even though from a military perspective it did not represent the state of the art of fortifications at the time of its completion and was not easy to defend against siege artillery due to its location in a valley.