Bratislava Castle
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Bratislava Castle Bratislavský hrad | |
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Bratislava Old Town Slovakia | |
Type | Castle |
Site information | |
Controlled by | Great Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia |
Open to the public | outdoor areas nonstop, opening hours apply to the museum |
Site history | |
Built | 9th century – 18th century Rebuilt in 1956 – 1964 |
Events | Notable events in the castle's life:
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Bratislava Castle (Slovak: Bratislavský hrad, IPA: [ˈbracislawskiː ˈɦrat] ⓘ; German: Pressburger Burg; Hungarian: Pozsonyi vár) is the main castle of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. The massive rectangular building with four corner towers stands on an isolated rocky hill of the Little Carpathians, directly above the Danube river, in the middle of Bratislava. Because of its size and location, it has been a dominant feature of the city for centuries.
The location provides excellent views of Bratislava, Austria and, in clear weather, parts of Hungary. Many legends are connected with the history of the castle.
Castle site
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2024) |
The following are at the castle site:
Castle building
The castle building includes four towers (one on each corner) and a courtyard with a 80 m (260 ft) deep water well. The largest and tallest tower is the Crown Tower, on the southwest corner. The 47 m (154 ft) tower dates from the 13th century and for approximately 200 years, beginning in the mid-1500s, housed the crown jewels of Hungary.[1] The exterior walls and inside corridors contain fragments of old Gothic and Renaissance construction elements. The walled-up entrance gate from the 16th century is still visible to the east of the main hall/entrance.
Museum
Behind the entrance is an arcade corridor leading to a large
Entrance gates
- Sigismund Gate in the southeast—the best-preserved original part of the site, built in the 15th century
- Vienna Gate in the southwest —built in 1712
- Nicholas Gate in the northeast —built in the 16th century
- Leopold Gate
Other buildings
To the west of the main building is the newly reconstructed F. A. Hillebrandt building, which dates from 1762 and was destroyed by the 1811 fire. The Yard of Honor, the space directly before the castle entrance, dates from the late 18th century.
Inside the Sigismund Gate and below the Court of Honor is the Leopold Yard with bastions, constructed in the 17th century.
To the east of the castle building, the constellation of the Great Moravian basilica (9th century), the Church of St Savior (11th century), and other early medieval objects is indicated on the ground. The true archaeological findings are directly below this indicated constellation.
Adjacent to the Nicholas Gate, a Gothic gateway from the 15th century in the northeast quadrant, is the Lugiland Bastion. This is a long three-floor building from the 17th century that currently houses the National Council of the Slovak Republic and a Baroque stable (today a restaurant). A French baroque garden is located to the south of the stable.
The northern border of the site is formed by a long Baroque building from the 18th century, which today houses the Slovak National Museum and the castle administration.
History
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Prehistory (2800 – 450 BC)
The castle's site, like today's city, has been inhabited for thousands of years, because it is strategically located in the center of Europe at a passage between the
The people of the
Further major findings from the castle hill are from the
Celts and Romans (450 BC – 5th century AD)
During the
The castle hill, which was situated at the Danube and thus since 9 BC at the border of the Roman Empire, was also settled by the Romans during the Roman Period (1st to 4th century AD), as findings of bricks of Roman legions (Legion XIII GAN, Legion X GEPF etc.) and some parts of architecture (a Roman figural relief, roof parts, etc.) suggest.
The developments in the 5th century (the time of the Great Migration of Peoples) are largely unclear.
Slavs, Nitrian Principality, Great Moravia (500 – 907)
The situation changed with the arrival of the Slavs in the territory of Bratislava. Initially, they partly used older Roman and Celtic structures and added some fortifications. Probably at the end of the 8th century (definitely not later than in the early 9th century), at the time of the Principality of Nitra, a Slavic castle with a wooden rampart was constructed, with a huge area of 55,000 square metres. In the second half of the 9th century, at the time of Great Moravia, a palace of stone surrounded by dwellings and a big basilica were added.
The basilica is the largest Great Moravian basilica from the territory of Slovakia, and the area of the castle is approximately the same as that of the Mikulčice site (the historical town "Moravia"), which is the most important Great Moravian archaeological site.
Material from old Roman buildings was used to construct this Slavic castle in Bratislava. This could be a confirmation of the disputed statement of
The oldest version of this name was Preslava (Slovak) / Preslav(a) sburg (German). It appeared for the first time in 907 (Battle of Pressburg) in the forms Brezalauspurc(h), Braslavespurch, and Pressalauspruch, and then around 1000 on Hungarian coins as Preslav(v) a Civitas (meaning Bratislava Castle). On the other hand, the exact location of Brezalauspurc is still disputed.
High and Late Middle Ages (907 – 1531)
The construction of a new castle of stone started in the 10th century, but work lagged. Under
The castle was turned into a proto-
The well-fortified
On 25 October 1265, the Czech king,
As a result of this permanent fighting, the Hungarian king granted the city rights (town charter) to a part of the settlements below the castle in 1291, thereby withdrawing them from the authority of the county head in the castle. Some settlements on the castle hill remained under the castle's authority, and the fortification was gradually extended to them.
In 1385, king
Another ally of king Sigismund, especially in his fights against the Czech Hussites, was the noble family Rozgonyi, which received the Pozsony county head function in 1421. At some point between 1420 and 1430, Sigismund (Holy Roman Emperor) decided to make Bratislava Castle –due to its central location —the center of his new German-Czech-Hungarian empire. In 1423, the king ordered the Rozgonyis to improve the fortifications of the castle as a protection against Hussite attacks, because it was situated close to the Czech border and was only protected by the old wooden ramparts. This was replaced with a stone bulwark. Between 1431 and 1434, a total rearrangement of Pressburg castle took place. Experts from Germany were invited, material was transported from Austria, and towns were imposed special taxes specifically for the construction of the largest castle ever built. The construction master was Konrad von Erlingen. The residential "tower" was demolished, and the form of the new Gothic palace was approximately similar to that of the present-day castle (but without two towers). Today, the only completely preserved part of the castle from that time is the Sigismund Gate (wrongly called the Corvinus Gate), i.e., the eastern entrance gate in the bulwark. Smaller parts have been preserve in the main palace. Sigismund's plans, however, did not materialize, because the castle never became his residence, and he remained in the town below the castle.
After Sigismund's death in 1437, his widow,
Main castle of the Kingdom of Hungary (1531 – 1783)
Political events
In 1536 (de facto already in 1531), after the
Holy Crown of Hungary in the crown tower
Between 1552 and 1784, the Holy Crown of Hungary stayed in the castle. Two Hungarian crown guards, fifty Hungarian and fifty Austrian infantry soldiers cared for it. Hungarian kings who derived from foreign dynasties as Habsburgs could not possess it and only had access to the crown during their coronation ceremony.
Renaissance conversion
Immediately after the defeat of the Kingdom of Hungary at the
Taking into account the new role of the castle, Ferdinand I had it rebuilt into a Renaissance castle by Italian builders and artists, such as Giulio Licino da Pordanone and Maciotanus Ulisses from Rome, between 1552 and 1562 (with some work continuing even afterwards). The main designer and supervisor of the construction was the Italian architect Pietro Ferrabosco, who had been serving the emperor in Vienna and knew Count Eck Salm, the captain of Pressburg from 1552 –1571. The building's form did not change (except that the entrance was shifted), but it was completely changed inside and outside. Above all, floors and rooms were rearranged, and most rooms received precious ornaments. In the late 16th century, a building for ball games at the eastern wall and a second, better water well were added. Other improvements were made and structures added over the years.
In terms of the castle's functions after 1530, it was home to selected participants of diet meetings, and since 1552, it has held the crown jewels, in what is today known as the Crown Tower.
Baroque conversions
Early Baroque
Since some of the Renaissance changes were done in haste (especially the wooden roof), as early as in 1616, a new, gradual Early
In 1653, all wooden ceilings turned out to be defective and had to be replaced in the following years, so that precious paintings placed on them got lost. Ten years later, facing one of the frequent Turkish attacks to the territory of Slovakia, the fortifications were improved under the leadership of military engineer Josef Priami of the Imperial Court in Vienna; further improvements of the fortifications followed around 1673. They ended with the final defeat of the Turks at Vienna in 1683. In 1703, barracks were built in the northeast of the site, and the armoury was turned into barracks as well. The present-day Vienna Gate was constructed on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Charles VI in 1712, and it has been used as the main entrance to the castle since then.
Maria Theresa conversion
When
Minor changes were made as early as 1740: besides various changes in the interior, a large garden was added in the northern part of the site, and Emperor Francis I (Maria Theresa's husband, who was interested in botany) created a small garden to the east of the castle building. The chief designer until 1757 was J. B. Martinelli.
Major changes inside the castle (in the
Due to disputes with
Because the governor did not have enough space, a new palace (later called the Theresianum) was built at the eastern wall of the castle building in 1767—1770, designed by
In addition, a winter riding school was added at the northern end of the castle site, a summer riding school was situated directly in the castle yard, both castle gardens were adapted (in the Schönbrunn style), and night lighting using oil lanterns was introduced on the access road to the castle for the first time in history. In 1770, Maria Theresa herself ordered further valuable paintings and furniture to be provided to both the main castle and the Theresianum, and the governor moved into the completed building.
Loss of importance and destruction (1783 – 1811)
The office of governor of the Kingdom of Hungary was re-abolished in 1781 by the new king, Joseph II, and Albert of Sachsen-Teschen left the castle and took many parts of the equipment away. The (present-day Albertina Gallery) art collection went partly to Vienna and partly to Belgium, where Albert became a new governor. Other objects moved mostly to Vienna. In 1783, Pressburg ceased to be the seat of central authorities of the kingdom; they were moved to Buda (now Budapest). The crown jewels of the Kingdom of Hungary were moved to the Hofburg in Vienna.
In 1784, the Theresianum, some other secondary buildings of the site, and the gardens were adapted, as the castle became a "general seminary", which was a type of state school for
In 1802, the general seminary moved to another place, and the castle was assigned to the military as a barracks. This was the beginning of its end. The rococo interiors of the castle were adapted in order to house some 1,500 soldiers. In 1809, Pressburg and the castle were bombarded by Napoleon's troops. On 28 May 1811, the castle burst into flames caused by carelessness of garrison soldiers; the fire spread to parts of the town.
Castle in ruins (1811 – 1953)
The destroyed castle gradually deteriorated, and the military sold parts of the main buildings as construction materials to the surrounding areas. Between the two world wars, attempts were made to demolish the castle to build government offices and a university district on the castle hill and in its surroundings in the first Czechoslovak Republic and the first Slovak Republic. Many parts of the site continued to be used as barracks and adapted accordingly until 1946.
In 1946, the ruin was opened to the public. Two years later, the town constructed an
Restoration and modern history (after 1953)
Finally, it was decided to restore the castle. Archaeological and architectural research started in 1953, and long restoration works began in 1957. The restoration was done to the last (Baroque) state of the main building, but at many places, older (Gothic, Renaissance) preserved elements or parts have been restored. The Theresianum has not been renovated, and the F. A. Hillebrandt building of 1762 was restored only around the year 2000. The Slovak painter Janko Alexy gained recognition for his work on the castle. Construction was halted in August 1968, when the castle was occupied by Warsaw Pact troops as part of the Prague Spring. On 28 October 1968, however, the Federation Law, turning the centralist state of Czechoslovakia into a federation of a Czech Socialist Republic and a Slovak Socialist Republic, was signed in the Federation Hall of the castle. On 3 September 1992, the new constitution of independent Slovakia was signed in the Knights Hall.
Since 1968, the castle has housed exhibitions of the
On 6 June 2010, the reconstruction of the Honorary Courtyard of Bratislava Castle was completed, with a nationally televised unveiling ceremony of an equestrian statue of
See also
References
Works cited
- Mencl, Václav and Dobroslava (1936). Bratislava: Stavební obraz města a hradu (in Czech). Prague: Jan Štenc.
- Lacika, Ján (2000). Bratislava. Visiting Slovakia (1st ed.). Bratislava, Slovakia: [DAJAMA]. ISBN 80-88975-16-6.
References
- ^ Reconstruction of the Bratislava Castle (PDF). Chancellery of the National Council of the Slovak Republic. May 2010. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 20 September 2013.
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