Sixth-largest castle site of Slovak history consists of the ruins of Spiš Castle to the east of the country. In the Spiš region, the castle is located above the villages of Žehra and Spišské Podhradie. In 1993, it was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. The castle area is 39,000 square meters in size. The division of Slovak National Museum namely Spiš Museum at Levoča is in charge of overseeing it. On the site of an earlier castle, Spiš Castle was constructed in the twelfth century. It served as the political, administrative, commercial, and cultural hub of the Szepes County of Hungarian Kingdom. The dynasties that owned it before 1464 were the kings of Hungary, up to King Matthias Corvinus. Following it the Zápolya family ruled up to 1528, the Thurzó family between1531–1635, the Csáky family between1638–1945, and, from 1945 onward, the state of Czechoslovakia, and finally Slovakia. Originally a fortified Romanesque stone castle, by the second half of the thirteenth century a two-story Romanesque palace and a three-nave Romanesque-Gothic basilica had been built. The area of the castle was doubled by the construction of a second extramural settlement in the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century, the castle underwent a complete reconstruction that included raising the walls and building a third extramural settlement. Approximately in 1470, a late Gothic chapel was added. The upper castle was transformed by the Zápolya clan into a cozy family home reminiscent of late Renaissance homes from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through late Gothic architectural elements. The Csáky family, the last occupants of the Spiš Castle, left it in the early eighteenth century because they felt it was too uncomfortable to live in. They relocated to the recently constructed village palaces in Hodkovce, close to Žehra and Spišský Hrhov. A fire in 1780 completely destroyed the castle. There are a few theories, but the cause of the fire is unknown. One is that the Csáky family intentionally set it on fire in order to lower taxes because, at the time, buildings with roofs were subject to additional levies. Another theory is that the fire was caused by a lightning strike. A third theory holds that while some soldiers were producing moonshine inside the castle, they unintentionally lit the fire. Regardless, the castle was abandoned following the fire and started to deteriorate. In the latter half of the 20th century, considerable archaeological research was done at the castle, and it was partially rebuilt. The restored areas contain artifacts like torture devices that were once used in the castle, as well as exhibits from the Spiš Museum, which is in charge of overseeing the castle
[Information and Image Credit : Spiš_Castle, Wikipedia]
[Wikipedia-Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spi%C5%A1_Castle ]
[Image : Aerial photograph of the castle; Wikipedia-Image-Author : Civertan ]
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#Castles#History#Architecture
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Monuments and Architecture
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