Lewenz Castle
| Lewenz Castle | ||
|---|---|---|
.jpg) |
||
| Creation time : | 13th Century | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, rocky location | |
| Conservation status: | Preserved ruin | |
| Place: | Levice | |
| Geographical location | 48 ° 13 '18 " N , 18 ° 36' 3" E | |
| Height: | 163 m nm | |
|
||
The castle Levice ( Slovak hrad Levický , Hungarian Lévai vár ) is the preserved ruins of a hilltop castle in the Slovak town of Levice . It rises northwest of the town center on a rocky hill, above the rivers Perec and Podlužianka .
history
The castle was built in the second half of the 13th century to protect the roads to the fortified monastery of Hronský Beňadik and what is now the central Slovakian mountain towns. In the Middle Ages and modern times, the castle often changed hands, including the oligarch Matthäus Csák , the Hungarian crown, the Hronský Beňadik abbey and several noble families such as Lévai , Becse and Sárai . The medieval core was formed by a Gothic palace and a fortification with a round bastion . After a fire in 1434, the castle was rebuilt.
Because of the Ottoman raids after the battle of Mohács , there was a lot of construction activity in the 16th century. They built a stone fortification with artillery, on the north side of Artillery Bastion, a one-story building on the south side and later a Renaissance - country castle in the lower courtyard (1571). As early as 1543 the castle was declared one of the 15 anti-Turkish fortresses. Thanks to the fortification work, a direct Ottoman attack on the castle failed in 1578. Repeated fortification work in the 17th century added further castle walls with corner bastions to the fortress . The Ottomans conquered the fortress in 1663 without a fight, but the imperial army under de Souches won the castle back a year later after the Battle of Lewenz and fortified it again.
After bitter fighting between Rákóczis Kuruzen and the imperial family, the castle was badly damaged in February 1709 and was never fully rebuilt. The Hungarian aristocratic Esterházy family used some buildings as storage rooms after they had acquired the castle.
In the 1970s, the ruins of the upper castle and the fortifications were preserved and a regional museum (Tekovské múzeum) was housed in the country castle .
