Room of the Lovers

The name of the room was given by the romanticists in the 19th century. In the late medieval inventories this room is only marked as a small chamber. The presentation of the joust with wooden sticks dominates the room and should be considered in relationship to the lance joust in the adjoining room. It shows us knights on horseback with thick wooden sticks trying to poke the opponent to fall to the ground. This was only a sort of sport and not a real fight.

This type of joust was not intended to hurt the opponent or to kill him. But nevertheless a lot of accidents happened. Which was one of the reasons why this type of joust was forbidden repeatedly. But this didn’t help very much, because this sort of joust was too popular. Such a joust was also arranged to amuse the noble ladies. On the left side of the fresco we can see a mobile tribune for the ladies or other important people.

The name of the room was created by the Romantics because of all the couples presented around the wall. Men and women with different and sometimes very particularly clothes and hats seem to talk to each other or to gesticulate. But its very doubtful if all of them are really lovers because of their body language. It’s not easy to interpret these couples because we don’t have many similar scenes to compare with.

The remains of younger paintings are found in the northeastern edge of the room : A person riding a donkey and a woman roasting a chicken.