Nitra Castle ( sk, Nitriansky hrad, hu, Nyitrai vár) is a castle located in the Old Town of

Nitra Nitra (; also known by other alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia, situated at the foot of Zobor Mountain in the valley of the river Nitra. It is located 95 km east of Bratislava. With a population of about 78,353, it is the fifth la ...

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

. It dominants the city and is a national cultural monument. It is the seat of the

Diocese of Nitra The Diocese of Nitra ( sk, Nitrianska diecéza; la, Dioecesis Nitriensis; hu, Nyitrai egyházmegye) is a Roman Catholic diocese western Slovakia, with its seat in Nitra. , the bishop is Viliam Judák. History The diocese was created as the f ...

History

The first fortified center on Castle Hill dates back to the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

(1,600 BCE). In the 1st century BCE, the hill was settled by

Celts The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...

. After its destruction, the site was abandoned until the early Slavic period (7th-8th centuries) and at least from the turn of the 8th/9th centuries, it was permanently occupied by

Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...

. In the first half of the 9th century, the top of the hill was protected by the wooden palisade. In the second half of the same century, the Slavs built a massive rampart made of two outer drystone walls (thickness 2 x 3m) with an internal timber structure filled with earth (3m). The original rampart was destroyed before early 11th century. The castle was built in the 11th century on the place of an earlier fort. The core of the castle is St. Emmeram's Cathedral with the Bishop's residence; the oldest surviving part is the Romanesque Church of St. Emmeram from the 11th century along with two other parts of the cathedral: the originally Gothic Upper Church from the 14th century and the Lower Church from the 17th century. The originally Gothic Bishop's Palace got its present Late Baroque appearance in the 18th century. There are also surviving parts of the castle fortifications, the majority of which were created in the 16th and 17th centuries and a smaller part from the Middle Ages. The church is currently being remodeled.

Gallery

File:Nitriansky_hrad_1.jpg File:Nitriansky_hrad_1a.jpg File:Nitriansky_hrad_1b.jpg

References

Bibliography

External links

Castle of Nitra at slovakia.travel
Buildings and structures in Nitra Castles in Slovakia 11th-century architecture in Slovakia Tourist attractions in Nitra Region {{Slovakia-struct-stub