Visegrád

Coordinates: 47°47′05″N 18°58′25″E / 47.78483°N 18.97367°E / 47.78483; 18.97367
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Visegrád
The city in the Danube Bend
Royal Palace
Gate of the Citadel
Descending, from top: the city in the Danube Bend, ruins of the Royal Palace, gate of the Citadel
UTC+2 (CEST)
Postal code
2025
Area code26

Visegrád (Hungarian:

Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and a medieval citadel
.

Etymology

The name Visegrád (Vyšehrad) is of Slavic origin, meaning acropolis, literally "the upper castle" (the castle with a privileged position) or "the upper settlement". In modern Slovak and Czech, the form is Vyšehrad.

The castle of Visegrád is called Fellegvár (Citadel) in Hungarian,[2] In German, the town is called Plintenburg. The German name Plintenburg or Blendenburg is said to come from the beautiful view that one has from the castle and is "blinded"/"dazzled" by this view.[3]

History

Visegrád was first mentioned in 1009 as a county town and the chief town of an archdeaconry. After the destructive Mongol invasion of Europe in 1242, the town was rebuilt in a slightly different location to the south. King Charles I of Hungary made Visegrád the royal seat of Hungary in 1325. At the same time, his diplomat Stephen Sáfár was appointed castellan.

In 1335, Charles hosted at Visegrád a

Habsburg Austria. Another congress
followed in 1339.

Matthias Corvinus
(1443–1490), King of Hungary, used Visegrád as a country residence.

Visegrád lost importance after the partition of the Kingdom of Hungary following the Battle of Mohács in 1526. It was captured by the Ottomans under Suleiman the Magnificent in 1529. In 1532, King Zápolya besieged Visegrád and took it. In 1540, after the death of Zápolya, Habsburg general Leonhard Fels took the city, as well as Vác, Pest, Tata and Székesfehérvár. Because the city threatened the lines of communication between Buda and Esztergom, Yahyapaşaoğlu Mehmed Paşa of Buda took it in 1544 (possibly April 23, before May 10).

In February 1991, the leading politicians of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland met here to form a periodical forum, the Visegrád Group, with an intentional allusion to the meeting centuries earlier in 1335.

Visegrád was granted town privileges again in 2000.

Monuments

Visegrád Castle
King Matthias
' reign
Visegrád in 1686 by Gaspar Bouttats
King Solomon in the Solomon Tower in Visegrád, by Henrik Weber

Upper Castle

After the Mongol invasion, King Béla IV of Hungary and his wife had a new fortification system constructed in the 1240s and 1250s near the one destroyed earlier. The first part of the new system was the Upper Castle on top of a high hill. The castle was laid out on a triangular ground plan and had three towers at its corners. In the 14th century, at the time of the Angevin kings of Hungary, the castle became a royal residence and was enlarged with a new curtain wall and palace buildings.

Around 1400 King

Matthias Corvinus had the interior renovated. The Upper Castle also served for the safekeeping of the Hungarian royal insignia between the 14th century and 1526. In 1544 Visegrád was occupied by the Ottoman Empire, and, apart from a short period in 1595–1605, it remained in Turkish
hands until 1685. The castle was seriously damaged by the Turks and was never used afterwards.

The castle is now open to the public to visit.

Lower Castle

The Lower Castle is the part of the fortification system that connects the Upper Castle with the Danube. In its centre rises the Solomon Tower, a large, hexagonal residential tower dating from the 13th century. In the 14th century, new curtain walls were built around the tower. During a Turkish raid in 1544, the southern part of the tower collapsed. Its renovation began only in the 1870s and was finished in the 1960s.

At present, the Tower houses exhibitions installed by the King Matthias Museum (Mátyás Király Múzeum) of Visegrád. The exhibitions present the reconstructed Gothic fountains from the Royal Palace, Renaissance sculpture in Visegrád, and the history of Visegrád.

Royal Palace

The first royal house on this site was built by King Charles I of Hungary after 1325. In the second half of the 14th century, this was enlarged into a palace by his son, King Louis I of Hungary.[4]

In the last third of the 14th century, King Louis and his successor Sigismund of Luxembourg had the majority of the earlier buildings dismantled and created a new, sumptuous palace complex, the extensive ruins of which are still visible today. The palace complex was laid out on a square ground plan measuring 123 x 123 m. A garden adjoined to it from the north and a

Franciscan
friary, founded by King Sigismund in 1424, from the south. In the time of Louis I and Sigismund, the palace was the official residence of the kings of Hungary until about 1405–08.

Between 1477 and 1484 Matthias Corvinus had the palace complex reconstructed in late Gothic style. The Italian Renaissance architectural style was used for decoration, the first time the style appeared in Europe outside Italy. After the Ottoman Turks' siege in 1544, the palace fell into ruins. By the 18th century it was completely covered by earth. Its excavation began in 1934 and continues today.

The reconstructed royal residence building is open to the public and houses exhibitions on the history of the palace and reconstructed historical interiors.

Sibrik Hill

The ruins of this military camp can be seen outside Visegrád, to the north, on a hill that overlooks the Danube. The camp has a triangular ground plan. It was built in the first half of the 4th century as one of the important fortifications along the limes, the frontier of the Roman Empire. Its praetorium (the commander's building) was constructed at the end of the 4th century. In the early 5th century, the Roman army abandoned the military camp.

In the 10th and 11th centuries, the fortification, rebuilt as a castle, became a regional centre of the recently formed Hungarian state. "Visegrád" appears for the first time as the name of this regional centre (1009). The fortification was finally destroyed in 1242 by the Mongol invasion of Europe.

Twin towns – sister cities

Visegrád is twinned with:[5]

Gallery

  • Sibrik Hill
    Sibrik Hill
  • Royal Palace, Matthias fountain
    Royal Palace, Matthias fountain
  • Garden of the Royal Palace
    Garden of the Royal Palace
  • Visegrád castle panorama
    Visegrád castle panorama
  • Visegrád castle
  • Visegrád castle
    Visegrád castle

See also

External links

References

  1. ^ "Visegrád". National Gazeteer of Hungary. Hungarian Central Statistical Office. 1 January 2022.
  2. .
  3. ^ Thiele, J. C. von (1833). Das Königreich Ungarn: ein topographisch-historisch-statistisches Rundgemälde, das Ganze dieses Landes in mehr denn 12,400 Artikeln umfassend (in German). Vol. 1. Kaschau: Gedruckt auf Kosten der v. Thiele'schen Erben. p. 266. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  4. ^ Bain, Robert Nisbet (1911). "Louis I. of Hungary" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). p. 49.
  5. ^ "Testvérvárosok". visegrad.hu (in Hungarian). Visegrád. Retrieved 31 March 2021.