History
Hunyad Castle was built by King Charles I of Hungary, after his visit in Temesvár (Timişoara), Kingdom of Hungary (now Romania), in 1307. The King decided to set up residence there. The building, probably built by Italian builders, was finished in 1315 and in 1316 the King was already established in the new castle, where he lived almost eight years. The last document signed by him in Timisoara dated June 15, 1323. In 1409, the castle was given to John Hunyadi's father, Voyk, by Sigismund, king of Hungary, as severance. The castle was restored between 1446 and 1453 by his son John Hunyadi. It was built mainly in Gothic style, but has Renaissance architectural elements. It features tall and strong defense towers, an interior yard and a drawbridge. Built over the site of an older fortification and on a rock above the small river Zlaşti, the castle is a large and imposing building with tall and diversely colored roofs, towers and myriad windows and balconies adorned with stone carvings.
The current castle is the result of a fanciful restoration campaign undertaken after a disastrous fire and many decades of total neglect. It has been noted that modern "architects projected to it their own wistful interpretations of how a great Gothic castle should look".
Read more about this topic: Hunyad Castle
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)