Visegrád (; german: Plintenburg; la, Pone Navata or ; sk, Vyšehrad) is a castle town in Pest County, Hungary. It is north of

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...

on the right bank of the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

in the Danube Bend. It had a population of 1,864 in 2010. The town is the site of the remains of the Early Renaissance summer

palace A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...

of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and a medieval

citadel A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of "city", meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. In ...

Etymology

The name ''Visegrád'' (''Vyšehrad'') is of Slavic origin, meaning acropolis, literary "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,Antal Papp: Magyarország (Hungary), Panoráma, Budapest, 1982, , p. 860, pp. 229-236 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.

History

Visegrád was first mentioned in 1009 as a county town and the chief town of an

archdeacon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denominations, above that of mo ...

ry. After the destructive

Mongol invasion of Europe From the 1220s into the 1240s, the Mongols conquered the Turkic states of Volga Bulgaria, Cumania, Alania, and the Kievan Rus' federation. Following this, they began their invasion into heartland Europe by launching a two-pronged invasion of ...

in 1242, the town was rebuilt in a slightly different location to the south. King

Charles I of Hungary Charles I, also known as Charles Robert ( hu, Károly Róbert; hr, Karlo Robert; sk, Karol Róbert; 128816 July 1342) was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1308 to his death. He was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou and the only son of ...

made Visegrád the royal seat of Hungary in 1325. At the same time, his diplomat

Stephen Sáfár Stephen Sáfár de Csév ( hu, csévi Sáfár István; 1280s–1345) was a Hungarian diplomat, soldier and noble in the first half of the 14th century, a loyal supporter of Charles I of Hungary and his consolidation efforts. In this regard, Stephe ...

was appointed

castellan A castellan is the title used in Medieval Europe for an appointed official, a governor of a castle and its surrounding territory referred to as the castellany. The title of ''governor'' is retained in the English prison system, as a remnant ...

. In 1335, Charles hosted at Visegrád a two-month congress with the

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

n king, John of Luxembourg, and the Polish king, Casimir III. It was crucial in creating a peace between the three kingdoms and securing an alliance between Poland and Hungary against

Habsburg The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...

Austria. Another congress followed in 1339. Sigismund,

Holy Roman Emperor The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...

and King of Hungary and Croatia in personal union with Hungary, moved the royal seat to

Buda Buda (; german: Ofen, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Budim, Будим, Czech and sk, Budín, tr, Budin) was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 has been the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on the ...

between 1405 and 1408. King

Matthias Corvinus Matthias Corvinus, also called Matthias I ( hu, Hunyadi Mátyás, ro, Matia/Matei Corvin, hr, Matija/Matijaš Korvin, sk, Matej Korvín, cz, Matyáš Korvín; ), was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1458 to 1490. After conducting several m ...

(1443–1490), King of Hungary, used Visegrád as a country residence. Visegrád lost importance after the partition of the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coronation of the Hungarian monarch, c ...

following the Battle of Mohács in 1526. 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 Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the traditio ...

again in 2000.

Monuments

Upper Castle

After the Mongol invasion, King

Béla IV of Hungary Béla IV (1206 – 3 May 1270) was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1235 and 1270, and Duke of Styria from 1254 to 1258. As the oldest son of King Andrew II, he was crowned upon the initiative of a group of influential noblemen in his fath ...

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 Sigismund had a third curtain wall constructed and enlarged the palace buildings. At the end of the 15th century, King

had the interior renovated. The Upper Castle also served for the safekeeping of the Hungarian

royal insignia The royal insignia ( nl, koninklijk distinctief) is the military insignia specially designed for Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands for use on his military uniforms after his investiture as King of the Netherlands in 2013. The insignia co ...

between the 14th century and 1526. In 1544 Visegrád was occupied by the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

, 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

. 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 Louis I, also Louis the Great ( hu, Nagy Lajos; hr, Ludovik Veliki; sk, Ľudovít Veľký) or Louis the Hungarian ( pl, Ludwik Węgierski; 5 March 132610 September 1382), was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 and King of Poland from 1370 ...

. 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 , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

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 Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

. The

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

architectural style An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...

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 Limes may refer to: * the plural form of lime (disambiguation) Lime commonly refers to: * Lime (fruit), a green citrus fruit * Lime (material), inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide * Lime (color), a ...

, the frontier of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

. 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 A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

, 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

Twin towns – sister cities

Visegrád is twinned with: *

Lanciano Lanciano (; nap, label= Abruzzese, Langiàne ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Chieti, part of the Abruzzo region of central Italy. It has 36,304 inhabitants as of 2011. The town is known for the first recorded Catholic Eucharisti ...

, Italy * Obergünzburg, Germany

Gallery

Kastell Visegrád–Sibrik – Südmauer.jpg, Sibrik Hill Königsschloß4 - Mátyás Király Múzeum (König-Matthias-Museum), Visegrád.jpg, Royal Palace, Matthias fountain Királyi palota maradványai (7594. számú műemlék) 3.jpg, Garden of the Royal Palace Visegrád castle panorama.jpg, Visegrád castle panorama Visegrád castle.jpg, Visegrád castle File:Fellegvár (7612. számú műemlék) 3.jpg, Visegrád castle

External links

Official websiteStreet map

Aerial photography: Visegrád

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Visegrad Populated places in Pest County Romanesque architecture in Hungary Castles in Hungary Buildings and structures in Pest County Museums in Pest County Historic house museums in Hungary Former capitals of Hungary Royal residences in Hungary