Plaveč Castle
| Plaveč Castle | ||
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| Creation time : | late 13th century | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | Preserved ruin | |
| Place: | Plaveč | |
| Geographical location | 49 ° 15 '19 " N , 20 ° 50' 52" E | |
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The Castle Plaveč ( Slovak Hrad Plaveč or Plavečský hrad , Hungarian Palocsai vár ) is the ruin of a hilltop castle above the village of Plaveč in northeastern Slovakia .
Surname
The name is said to be derived from the Slavic name of the Cumans (in today's Slovakian Plavci ) who were invited by Hungarian kings in the 11th and 12th centuries to oversee the borders of the emerging Hungarian state .
history
The castle was first mentioned in writing as Palocha in 1294 and was built by a certain Ditrich (or his son Arnold) from the Spiš to secure a ford on the way to Poland . The border castle became a royal estate and was given to the Drugeth family by Charles I in 1317 . After the extinction of the Drugeth, the Bebek family received the castle from King Sigismund of Luxembourg in 1366 . Around 1427 the Bebeks owned the entire territory of the castle.
Between 1449 and 1458, the Bohemian brothers who went out from the Hussites ruled the castle together with their leader Petr Aksamit . After the brothers were expelled from the Zápolya family , they kept the castle until 1505, when Stephan Zápolya's widow donated it to the Horváth family , which from then on was known as Horváth-Palocsay . This family had the castle rebuilt in the Renaissance style in the 16th century , and another complex reconstruction followed in the 17th century, the result of which was a residential castle that replaced the medieval fortress. This saved it from being razed in 1715. After the last renovation in 1830, the residential part was given the appearance of a classical castle . The whole complex fell victim to a fire in 1856 and the Palocsay family died out a year later . The abandoned castle slowly fell into disrepair until the walls of the former palace collapsed in the 1990s , leaving only small parts of the wall of the living area and a bastion .
Current condition
The castle has been renovated and partially rebuilt since 2014.
