Official website of the chateau (www.zamek-opocno.cz)

The armory concentrates the collections of European weapons and belongs to the biggest and most important in the Czech Republic.

The Colloredo-Mansfelds accumulated a remarkably large number of both military and hunting weapons. At the moment when weapons had lost their original purpose they became objects of interest for antiquaries and soon started to cover walls of representative rooms and corridors in chateaux or were assembled in armories and hunting halls. The collection at Opoèno is one of the very few ensembles of historical weapons in Bohemia surviving in its original installation which dates shortly after 1895. The Colloredos entrusted Julius Ascheurer from Vienna with the task to order it and work out an inventory. That of 1914 contains 768 items while their number rose to 1243 weapons by 1933 already. Today the collection consists of some 2,200 exhibits and is concentrated according to types of weapons in the hunting hall, the armory and in a recently established Oriental armory. The Colloredo-Mansfelds were enthusiastic hunters. Even Emperor Franz Stephan of Lotharingia, husband of Maria Theresia, had taken part in hunts at Opoèno. The hunting hall holds a collection of hunting weapons dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries-lances, crossbows and gong giving a survey of the development of locks from wheel-locks and flint-locks to guns with percussion locks. The Procházkas, an important family of gunmakers, whose weapons are comparable to those of the most prominent European south German, Austrian, Spanish, lta1ian or Silesian gunmakers, represented in the collection, too, used to work at Opoèno. A number of knives, bowie-knives, small swords and other hunt utensils are also on display in the hall.

As from the 16th century weapons became a popular collection item. The fancy for collections of weapons culminated in the 19th century when armories became a regular and representative part of feudal seats. Exhibits at Opoèno illustrate the evolution of side- and fire- arms and include works from important European gun-making centers. Noteworthy exhibits are various types of armor and helmets, the oldest ones originating from Roman excavations, Hussite arms and executioners' swords.

A large number of historical weapons hang on the walls of the staircase. Two of the four guns on the court-yard-terrace were cast in Vilhelm Wegewaert's workshop in the Hague and date from 1628.

In addition to the exhibition of hunting and military weapons at Opoèno, a collection of Oriental weapons was established there in 1982. After scientific evaluation and indexing, Oriental weapons at Opoèno, formerly neglected and unnoticed, were suddenly found of great interest and nowadays form an ensemble com- parable to the important collections of Oriental weapons both in the Czech Republic and abroad. This goes mainly for the collection of side-arms from South Asia. Most valuable exhibits from other chateaux and from the Náprstek Museum in Prague were also included into this collection which nowadays gives a general survey of Asian arms from Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran, India, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, China and Japan.