Lihtenberk Castle

Lihtenberk Castle (Slovene: Grad Lihtenberk, German: Schloss Lichtenberg) is a 13th-century castle ruin located in the Municipality of Šmartno pri Litiji in central Slovenia, directly adjacent to the later Bogenšperk Castle.

It is best known for a minor association with the 17th-century historian Johann Weikhard von Valvasor, who owned the ruin and styled himself (among other things) "von Lichtenberg."

Lihtenberk was a walled castle with a three-story residential palacium, remnants of which are the only element still visible today.

Around 1288 the castle was temporarily occupied by Count Meinhard of Tyrol, who gave it out in fief, but the Patriarchate of Aquileia soon intervened to revert the castle to its previous state of ownership.

The fate of Lihtenberk was sealed by the 1511 Idrija earthquake which badly damaged the building; in 1630 its owner Jurij Kheysell demolished what was left and used the materials for the consolidation and repair of Bogenšperk, a practice continued later in the century by Valvasor.