Norviliškės Castle is a Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 style castle in Norviliškės

Norviliškes

Norviliškės, is a small village in the so-called Dieveniškės appendix, Šalčininkai district municipality, Lithuania. It is located about northeast of the town of Dieveniškės near the border with Belarus. In 1986 it had 58 residents, and 24 residents in 2001....

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

. The Norviliškės Castle is first mentioned in 1586. In 1617 the owners donated part of the real estate land to Franciscans. Around 1745 they built a monastery and a church in Renaissance style

Renaissance architecture

Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...

. The monastery was reconstructed at the end of the 18th century by Kazimieras Kaminskis. After the November Uprising of 1831

November Uprising

The November Uprising , Polish–Russian War 1830–31 also known as the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when the young Polish officers from the local Army of the Congress...

, Russian authorities closed the monastery and turned it into barracks for soldiers, and later to a boarding school

Boarding school

A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...

 for girls. The Church of St. Mary Compassionate Mother was closed at the same time as the monastery. A new wooden church was built in 1929.

For a long time the former manor stood abandoned. In 2005, reconstruction was started by an entrepreneur, Giedrius Klimkevičius, from Vilnius

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

. The project is supported by funds from the PHARE

Phare

The Phare programme is one of the three pre-accession instruments financed by the European Union to assist the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe in their preparations for joining the European Union....

program. The hopes are that the Norviliškės Castle will become a tourist attraction. It offers hosting for business conferences or weddings, hunting, shooting practices, and other activities, including music festivals.