Château de Petit-Vivy

En un regard

Le château en bref

Petit-Vivy Castle, also known as Nouveau-Vivy, is described by the federal inventory of cultural property as the last inhabited medieval fortress in the canton of Fribourg. Built on the edge of a cliff above the Sarine, it has overlooked the waters of Lake Schiffenen, in the municipality of Courtepin, since 1963. Its triangular plan combines a large quadrangular keep-belfry, whose original entrance was at height, an enclosure wall reinforced by a mur de braies, a moat, a residential building and a guardroom. The federal inventory dates the keep and the enclosure wall to around 1260, for Conrad de Viviers, vassal of the counts of Thierstein and avoyer of Fribourg in 1270–1271. The Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse specifies that the castle replaced Grand-Vivy as the seat of the lordship shortly before 1293. It then passed to Nicolas (Nicod) de Vuippens in 1378, to Jean de Praroman in 1466, and, in 1623, to the de Gléresse family, who held it until 1799. A cultural property of national significance, it is recognised as a rare example of a small, well-preserved castle.