This question arose during a discussion with Giuseppe Maresca, the revitalizer of the nearly extinct Neapolitan horse breed. For decades, Maresca has been searching not only for surviving Neapolitan horses but also for the oldest existing riding hall.
It is undisputed that in the 15th/16th century, Italians laid the foundation for modern riding. Men like Fiaschi, Grisone, and Pignatelli paved the way for what we know today as equestrian art – movements like volte, passages, and piaffes.
However, Grisone extensively describes going outside the city gates and training horses on freshly plowed fields to educate them. So, who was the first to come up with the idea of building a riding arena or a riding hall, considering that these concepts were still foreign to Grisone in 1550?
The “Cavallerizza,” Naples – 1581
Maresca points to the Bianchini Barracks in Naples. I doubt that, at least concerning the building itself.
In 1581, the then Viceroy of Naples, Juan de Zúñiga y Requeséns, Prince of Pietraperzìa, constructed a structure called “Cavallerizza” near the Maddalena Bridge in Naples, outside the eastern Aragonese city wall. It served as a training ground for the horses and riders of the viceroyal army.
After being damaged during the Masaniello riots in 1648, the initially open space was restored and transformed into a training ground for horses. The military structure was later repurposed for civilian use, becoming a “riding arena,” making it the first facility of its kind in Italy and Europe. Horses were trained on a circular track.
In 1741, a decision was however made to relocate the “Cavallerizza” inside the city walls. The old structure was converted into an arena for circus performances and animal fights called the “Serraglio.” The existing double ramp and the amphitheater were initially preserved. However, the project remained unfinished, and this world’s first enclosed riding arena was bombed during World War II in 1943 and ultimately demolished.
The nearby barracks that replaced the Cavallerizza, desired by Charles III and designed by Luigi Vanvitelli in 1754, still exist today. However, these Bianchini-Brracks compete with dozens of other structures worldwide for the title of the oldest surviving riding hall. Currently, it houses the administration of a company.
In addition to the above, Pignatelli’s Riding Academy in Italy is worth mentioning. It was located near or in the Palazzo degli Studi, which now houses the Naples National Archaeological Museum. However, no trace of the equestrian installations remains here. All that is left is a museum building that dates nevertheless back to 1586 and may have a claim to being the first surviving riding hall in the world.
There are other historical riding halls in Italy, such as those in Turin and Lucca, but none date back to the Renaissance.
The Bleesern State Stud – The oldest stud in the world
The search for the oldest surviving riding hall could be redirected by looking at Germany. A painting by Titian shows Emperor Charles V on what appears to be a black horse. Further research reveals that this horse is also depicted in a fresco located in the Venafro fortress in Italy. The Neapolitan stallion is named ‘San Giorgio, Liardo’ – Saint George, Gray. The horse is named after the patron saint of the Habsburgs, Saint George, and is explicitly referred to as gray or dapple gray (although it appears also in Venafro to be black). It was sent to the emperor by its breeder, Enrico Pandone, who was later beheaded by the receiver Charles V.
Interestingly, Pandone and Federico Grisone later fought side by side against the emperor and for the French during the capture of Naples by the former (both were punished, even though Grisone only lost money).
In Titian’s painting, the emperor is depicted with the very same bridle made in Italy and on Pandone’s horse against a backdrop of a landscape. It has been said that this was invented or located near Augsburg, where the ruler had just won a battle (in which the 47-year-old participated lying down due to his gout). However, art historian Dr. Insa Christiane Hennen claims that Titian portrayed the Elbe meadows outside the gates of Wittenberg between Mühlberg and Bleesern. She could be right.
After the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547 and the victory of the Catholic League over the Schmalkaldic League, Emperor Charles took the Saxon electorate from the defeated Elector Johann Friedrich and awarded it to his cousin, the Albertine Duke Moritz of Saxony. This act took place in Bleesern, making the local electoral stud a scene of great world history.
And Bleesern proves to be more than that: The Electoral Saxon State Stud Bleesern was founded before 1449 and used for horse breeding until 1724. The poorly-preserved early Baroque buildings were completed in 1686, making them the oldest surviving stud facility in Germany and may be in the world. Although they were under the threat of demolition until 2010, they are now being restored.
The oldest still functioning stud today is the Graditz Main Stud, also located in Saxony, founded in 1630.
In the German-speaking region, the Marstall of Einsiedeln Monastery in Switzerland might claim a higher age. It was “only” built in 1765, but it was mentioned in the monastery’s legal grant from February 24, 1064, by King Henry IV, referring to horse breeding. However, Bleesern’s buildings are, in fact, older.
A similar facility survives at Hubertusburg Castle, dating from 1721. Its large H-shaped tracts of economic buildings once housed an internationally renowned stable with 240 stalls. The right-wing contained a riding school with spectator boxes, and the second floor housed a warehouse for clothing, blankets, and weapons.
Stallhof Dresden – The Oldest Riding Arena in the World
If we can establish that the oldest Marstall is in Bleesern, the question remains about the oldest riding arena and riding hall in the world.
These investigations initially also lead to Saxony, as a special man worked at the Saxon court at that time: Georg Engelhardt von Löhneysen (1552 – 1622), Chief Mining Officer, Master of the Horse, publisher, and writer. In 1575, Elector August of Saxony brought the young man as a teacher of riding and fencing to his Dresden court, a position he only left in 1583. Löhneysen wrote the book ‘Die neu eröffnete Hof-, Kriegs- und Reitschule’ (1588), a book on bridles, and his famous Cavalleria (1609).
One may wonder why Löhneysen was appointed to such a position at the tender age of 23. The most likely reason is family connections and Löhneysen’s stay in Italy with Pignatelli. At that time, a significant part of European nobility went to Naples to learn to ride from Grisone and, above all, Pignatelli. Also noteworthy are de la Broue and Pluvinel, the founders of French equestrian art, who each spent more than 5 years learning in Naples.
Löhneysen’s only six years younger student, the future Elector Christian of Saxony, was clearly impressed by these Italian experiences. Christian, a great drinker, had a penchant for festivals and spectacles of all kinds, especially for jousting, and from 1586 onwards, he had the Stallhof in Dresden laid out as a riding and tournament ground – almost simultaneously with the construction of the first permanent riding arenas and riding halls in Naples.
The Stallhof replaced an even earlier racing court with tribunes and is part of the complex of the Dresden Royal Palace and was probably built according to the designs of Giovanni Maria Nosseni in the Renaissance style. The rosettes of its decorations come from Italy, where Nosseni personally bought them in Modena. After all this, it can be assumed that the Dresden Stallhof is the oldest original surviving enclosed riding arena in the world.
Attached to it are a horse bath and stables for 180 horses (now the Museum of the Johanneum).
A covered royal-electoral riding hall was first built in 1618, destroyed and replaced by a second one in 1677, again destroyed to allow for the Zwinger to be built, and was replaced by a third one, which still exists. This latter one dates however ‘only’ back to 1795 (and houses today theater workshops of the Semperoper).
One might wonder why such an exceptional building is used as a storage room and millions of euros flow into the Moritzburg State Stud each year, instead of freeing this wonderful building in Dresden from its overbuilding and returning it to equestrian use.
The original bridles and knight’s armor of the rulers of Saxony and Poland can still be admired in the Dresden Armory.
Another significant historical riding hall was preserved in the recently burned-down Marstall of Dönhoff Castle (now in Poland), built-in 1720. The Marstall in Potsdam, created in 1746 and integrated into a former orangery, also survives. However, none of these candidates receive the title of the oldest riding hall.
An exceptionally old stable and riding hall survives at Bückeburg Castle in Germany, where in 1610 and 1622, the so-called “Riding and Wagon House,” today’s Marstall, was built. Simultaneously, a mirrored wing was built in a northwesterly extension with a covered riding arena. A ballhouse dedicated to contemporary ball games was also constructed at the same time. During a major fire in 1797, the Marstall with the “Riding House” was mostly destroyed. The ballhouse was thus converted into the riding hall and used since then.
Let’s check the “candidates” in France, Austria, and England.
France
In Rouen, in the 16th century, an Italian, Francisco del Campo, founded the first French riding academy. It was based on an older riding school that Charles V established in 1369 as the Society of the Jardin de l’Arc in the suburb of Bouvreuil in Rouen. In addition to this no longer existing riding academy, there was also a riding academy in Caen in the 16th century, led by Janus Geronimo from Naples, mentioned in a document from 1536. Both no longer exist. The riding hall of Pluvinel (1594) and Guérinières hall were both located where the Rue de Rivoli in Paris now cuts through.
The oldest surviving riding hall in France is therefore probably that of the Palace of Versailles, dating from 1679 and now housing the Académie Équestre.
Beautiful old riding halls can also be found in Chantilly, the Palace of Fontainebleau, and some of the castles along the Loire.
Austria
Austria claims a place among the oldest riding halls in its Spanish Riding School. Indeed, in 1681, the art-loving Emperor Leopold I decided to “build a new riding school in Vienna on the Tumblplatz.” It is reported that the building was almost finished in 1683 when the Turkish wars broke out, and the riding school was heavily damaged as a result. However, it was only under Emperor Charles VI. that construction of a riding school, the Winterreitschule in the Michaelertrakt of the Hofburg, began again in 1729. It is still preserved in its original form and is considered a baroque jewel. It may not be the oldest riding hall, but it is certainly one of the most famous.
Czech Republic
Two wonderful old riding facilities are also located in Lednice and the nearby Valtice in the Czech Republic. The riding halls were completed before 1690 according to plans by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. They are no longer used as riding halls.
England – Bolsover Castle – 1634
One of the oldest still-used riding hall is moreover the English Bolsover Castle, which none other than the famous Captain William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, had built around 1634. It is a wonderful historical testament to the beginning of equestrian art. And until proven otherwise, it is the oldest surviving and still-used riding hall in the world.
Recent research has also revealed that the entire riding hall is adorned with magical symbols against witches. Because Bolsover is not only home to the oldest riding hall in the world but is also one of the most haunted castles in England…
Conclusion
In summary:
- The oldest building once used as a riding hall is the National Museum in Naples (1586).
- The oldest still usable riding arena is the Stallhof in Dresden (1586).
- The oldest stud farm is the Bleesern Stud in Saxony (ruin) – 1449.
- The oldest still in use stud farm is either Graditz or Bückeburg.
- The oldest existing riding hall is in Bückeburg (1610).
Anyone who knows of older riding arenas and halls is welcome to contribute to this article.
Archaeology Mysteries 
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