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Celle Castle () or, less commonly, Celle Palace, in the German town of Celle in Lower Saxony, was one of the residences of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg. This quadrangular building is the largest castle in the southern Lüneburg Heath region.
From 1670 onwards alterations to the castle were carried out by Duke George William, which were intended to transform the old renaissance seat into a contemporary Residenz. George William was keen on building, typical of the princes of his time, and made further changes that were intended to recall his time in Italy. The façades, that were copied from Venice buildings, were then given their present-day appearance. Notable features include the corona of gables that encircles the roofs, and the unusual shape of the domed towers. The addition of the castle theatre and the Baroque state rooms stem from this period.
On the death of George William in 1705 the absolute rule of the dukes ended. The Principality of Lüneburg subsequently passed, along with the Principality of Calenberg, to the Kingdom of Hanover. The castle lost its political significance and stood empty again for a long time. From 1772 it was occupied by the British-born Danish queen, Caroline Matilda, the daughter of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, who had been banished to Celle as a result of her affair with Johann Friedrich Struensee of Copenhagen. The unhappy queen only lived at the Celle court until 1775, when she died at a relatively young age of scarlet fever. In the 19th century, the castle was occasionally used by the Hanoverian royal household as a summer residence. As a result, Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves had several interior alterations made in 1839 and 1840. During World War I, it was used as a detention camp for officers (Offizerslager or Oflag) by the German Army.
The present Schlosstheater was built on the instigation of Duke George William, who before he came to power spent some time in Venice and came to know Italian opera whilst he was there. The theatre was designed by the Italian architect Giuseppe Arighini. Construction work on the theatre began in 1670 and was largely finished by 1675. The duke hosted a succession of theatre companies, that he recruited, for example, from France, Italy and also nearby Hanover. On the death of the duke the theatre became orphaned until the short-lived stay of Caroline Matilda, for whom the theatre was given a second gallery.
The theatre was conceived for the benefit of the court and was never intended to be open to the public, who were first allowed a moderate degree of access to plays at the end of the 18th century. The theatre was regularly used until the late 19th century but was closed in 1890 and fell into disuse. In 1935 it underwent a thorough renovation.
Outside the former defensive belt, but not far from the castle, George William had the French Garden ("Französischer Garten"), a baroque park designed on French lines, laid out in the late 17th century. This was later converted to an English landscape garden, but the former baroque layout can still be made out in certain areas of the park.
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