Moritzburg Castle
Designed by his architect, Wolf Caspar von Klengel, the chapel is an example of early Baroque architecture.
Between 1723 and 1733, Augustus had the castle remodelled as a country seat by architects Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann and Zacharias Longuelune, adding a formal park, several ponds and a game preserve.
The grounds were extended to include a building for the storage of bird nest‘s, the large Well of Venus, living quarters for Count Camillo Marcolini and a maritime setting on the Great Lake complete with a miniature harbour with jetty and lighthouse.
The interior of the castle is furnished with examples of opulent baroque decor from the time of Augustus the Strong.
Among them is the heaviest red deer antler in the world, weighing 19.8 kilograms (44 lb) and spanning almost 2 metres (6.6 ft).
The ruins of the Hellhaus ("glade house"), built in 1787 and designed by Johann Daniel Schade, can be found on a raised point at the intersection of the paths.
Shortly after the remodelling of Moritzburg Castle as the country seat of August the Strong, a single-story pavilion was built just 2.5 kilometres (1.6 miles) away by the architect Johann Christoph Knöffel.
Johann Daniel Schade who had been the architect in charge of the royal building projects, received the commission for the Rococo design.
The high roof has an ogee profile, capped by an open cupola with a pair of Chinese figures under a parasol as a finial.
Concealed behind plantings to give the pavilion an isolated ambience, were outbuildings used to breed pheasants for use in hunting.
[2] In order to re-enact the famous Battle of Chesma, the Dardanelles, a miniature wall representing the original castles at the narrow strait in northwestern Turkey, were also built.
Today, the harbour is partly silted because the lake's water level is approximately 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) lower than before.
On the garden side of the castle, a pair of staircases descend to a sunken parterre, now planted with turf.
In 1972 Moritzburg Castle was one of the locations of the Czechoslovak-German film Tři oříšky pro Popelku ("Three Wishes for Cinderella"), which became a popular fairy-tale movie in Central Europe.
