The silhouette of Cinderella's castle that serves as the Disney logo is inspired by the Neuschwanstein fortress-palace, located near the municipality of Schwangau, in Germany , and which began to be erected in 1869.
Castles were already a relic when Louis II of Bavaria, the Mad King (1845-1886), ordered their construction, but it was another whim of the fickle monarch and his fantasy, released in an eclectic design: Neo-Gothic, Neo-Romanesque and Neo-Baroque . plus a touch of inspiration from the music of Wagner, his favorite composer.
The works of what was to be the ideal medieval castle were not finished when Louis II died in 1886. In Neuschwanstein – literally 'new swan stone' – he lived for only 170 days. There he was locked up after being deposed, accused of mental incapacity and of spending what was not written in this building and two other palaces. Later, the castle served the Nazis to store stolen art in France.
When Walt Disney met him, already a tourist attraction, he was fascinated. Although the genius of fantasy retained details of other constructions that he had visited in Europe and that he also projected in his imaginative creation , such as the palaces of Versailles and Fontainebleau, and the castles of Chenonceau, Chambord and Chaumont, in France. Two other fortresses told Herbert Ryman, designer of the Disney building: the Polish castle of Moszna and the Alcázar of Segovia.
