upon Romanesque foundations of the 13th century. In 1662 Spittal passed to the Gorizia Counts of Porcia, owners of Schloss Porcia until 1918. Today the palace hosts an annual festival for classic theatrical comedies (Komödienspiele Porcia) and is also home of a museum of local history. In 1537 the Carinthian Khevenhüller noble family had a residence erected opposite the castle, nowadays serving as the town hall. In 1797 Spittal was sieged by French troops in the course of the Napoleonic War of the First Coalition, in 1809 it fell with Upper Carinthia to the French Illyrian Provinces according to the Treaty of Schönbrunn. Restored to the Austrian Empire by the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the local economy was decisively promoted, when it gained access to the Austrian Southern Railway network in 1871. During the violent fights against Yugoslav troops before the Carinthian Plebiscite in 1920, Spittal for a short time was the provisional seat of the Carinthian state government, which had fled from Klagenfurt. It formally received town privileges on the occasion of the ten-years-anniversary in 1930. Since 1995 the Spittl has been a seat of the Carinthian Fachhochschule (University of Applied Sciences) for engineering ("Technikum"). Molzbichl East of the town, within the Drau Valley lies the village of Molzbichl, which is home to the remains of Carinthia's first monastery, established about 780 by Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria and abandoned in the 10th century. A small museum nearby shows several artifacts of Carolingian origin. The foundation of the monastery church is visible south of the present parish church Saint Tiburtius, which itself has an altar including a Roman tombstone of an Early Christian deacon Nonnosus, who died here in 532. On a slope above the valley, northeast of Molzbichl is Schloss Rothenthurn, in the 11th century called "Red Tower" (Roter Turm), a fiefdom of the Counts of Ortenburg. The present-day palace is a building from the 17th century and serves as a hotel. Politics Seats in the municipal assembly (Stadtrat) as of 2009 elections: Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ): 14 Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ): 11 Spittal People's Party (SVP): 4 The Greens: 1 Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ): 1 Notable people Virgil von Graben (15th century — 1507) Austrian noble and knight, stadtholder of Lienz and East Tyrol and Regent (captain) and stadtholder of Province of Gorizia (Görz). Rosina von Graben von Rain zu Sommeregg,