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In
1237
Alderich,
Royal-Bishop of Trent, authorized the Lords of Wangen to
erect a castle on a rocky slap called “runchenstayn” located at a
favourable strategic position. In 1277, after a war against Heinrich Royal-Bishop of Trent, Count Mainhard II of Tyrol took possession of the Castle and it was handed over in fief to Gottschalk Knoger of Bolzano.
In
1385 the Castle was bought by Niklaus and Franz Vintler descendants of
a wealthy merchant family. Niklaus was a reliable man, counsellor and
financier of the Count of Tyrol, Duke Leopold III of Austria. Thanks to
their
The
castle remained in possession of the Duke until 1530 and started to blossom during
the reign of Emperor Maximilian I who renovated the castle. He furnished his
apartment in the Summer House, commissioned the restoration of the freskos in
the Summer House and affixed his coats-of-arms above the door of the Room of Tristan
as well as on top of the chimney in the Room of Garel. In 1493 the Emperor placed the castle in the hands of his chancellor and later he entrusted it to Georg von Frundsberg, the famous “Father of the Lansquenets”. They both settled their own vicars and it was under one of them that the powder magazine in the groundfloor of the tower exploded in 1520. Besides the tower, the explosion seriously damaged parts of the enclosure wall, the entrance and Eastern Palace.
Since
that time the castle was neglected as neither Maximilian’s successor nor
Frundsberg took care of it anymore. In 1530 King Ferdinand I bestowed the castle to
Sigmund von Brandis, his Knight Commander of Bolzano. Later the Church of Under the rule of the Counts of Lichtenstein the castle was neglected and unfortunately, in 1672 a fire destroyed almost the entire Eastern Palace. The Diocese of Trent took direct charge of the Castle which by then had more or less become degraded to the state of a manor.
In the nineteenth century Romantics rediscovered Runkelstein. Josef Goerres, a German "Romantic", came first followed by the circle of artists of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who were enchanted by the Castle which became a symbol of the Romantic period. In 1868, the nothern wall of the Summer House collapsed after the foundation of bedrock had been blasted for building a new road into the Sarntal valley 10 years before.
In 1880 Johann Salvator Archduke of Austria bought Runkelstein Castle and in 1882 he gave it as a gift to Emperor Franz Josef who commissioned chief architect Friedrich von Schmidt to restore the Castle .
"Nobody"
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Trent obtained the castle back and Royal-Bishop Bernhard von Cles gave Runkelstein
Castle as a feud to the Counts of Lichtenstein-Castlecorno. In 1554 a branch of
his family settled there. Count Hans Jakob’s coat of arms on top the entrance testifies this period in the history of the castle. 
