After Massimiliano’s death in the Castelletto under medical supervision, Carlotta retired showing the first signs of mental imbalance.
In addition to the Miramare Castle, Carl Junker also designed the Park and the work was entrusted in 1857 to the court gardener Josef Laube, subsequently replaced by the Bohemian Anton Jelinek. The Archduke himself defined which plants should be planted and brought 820 species of plants from nurseries and villas of Veneto,
subsequently numerous tree typologies arrived from the imperial greenhouses of Vienna of the Habsburg family, while the more exotic ones were imported following the circumnavigation of the globe with the frigate Novara.
In the park there are sculptures from the Berlin school Moritz Geiss, the greenhouses, the Swan lake, the cannons donated by Leopoldo I, king of the Belgians and the chapel of San Canciano.
Like a silent sentinel, a Ptolemaic sphinx dating back to the 2nd century BC. C., carved in pink granite, is located at the top of the quay of the Castle’s harbor. It is a precious artefact belonging to the Egyptian collection brought together by Maximilian thanks to the scientific advice of Egyptologist Simon Reinisch, and now preserved in Vienna at the Kunsthistorisches Museum.
