Joan Blaeu - ' T CASTEEL ZWYNAERDE

There has been a castle on the territory of the current Zwijnaarde Castle since the eleventh century.
In 1526, Zwijnaarde Castle, the country residence of the abbot of St. Peter's Abbey in Ghent, was the scene of a human tragedy. Isabella, the second sister of Emperor Charles V and the queen of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, dies there. She was exhausted by five consecutive pregnancies, at the age of 25.
The history of Zwijnaarde Castle is just as dramatic as that of Isabella. The imposing medieval water castle was destroyed during the Calvinist government in Ghent between 1577 and 1584. In the seventeenth century, Abbot Joachim Schaeyck had it rebuilt.
After the French government sold the building publicly in 1797, it came into the possession of the della Faille d'Huysse family, who had it renovated in neoclassical style around 1836. But the castle was destroyed again in the violence of the First World War. The della Faille family is also now having the castle rebuilt. In 1922 the owners were able to put the new castle into use. Now it is a building designed in neo-rococo style.
Four castles were built in Zwijnaarde on the same foundations, each time they were imbued with the concerns of the elite of their time.