Eggenberg Calendar

The architectural programme of the palace is based on strict number symbolism. The calendar theme was extremely topical: Eggenberg Palace was built during the period of the great calendar dispute, which had started at the beginning of the Gregorian calendar reform in 1582 and not yet come to an end. The architecture of the palace is an expression of the values of the time.

There are 365 outside windows, which correspond to the days of the year. Each floor consists of 31 rooms, which correspond to the days of the longest months. Three of them, which lie exactly on the middle axis - the Planetary Room, chapel and theatre (which has now been converted into the palace church) - are rooms with a special significance. If they are subtracted from the complete set of 31 rooms, you get 30, 29 and 28, i.e. all possible variants of the number of days in the months of the year. The 24 hours of the day correspond to the circle of 24 state rooms, 12 on each side of the symmetrical axis, which separates the palace into two corresponding halves, 12 hours for the day and 12 hours for the night. The 24 rooms have a total of 52 windows for the weeks or the amount of Sundays in the year. Adding the 8 windows in the Planetary Room, you get the number 60 which stands for the number of seconds or minutes. There are even 52 doors in the Bel Étage. In the Planetary Room itself, you can also find the 7 days of the week and the 12 months of the year. And even the park wall has 12 doors opening towards the outside, seven of which face towards the city.