Preza Castle
| Preza Castle | ||
|---|---|---|
 View from the west tower to the clock tower and the mosque (gatehouse) |
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| Alternative name (s): | Preza Fortress | |
| Creation time : | 15th century | |
| Castle type : | Höhenburg, summit location | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Construction: | Ashlar | |
| Place: | Preza | |
| Geographical location | 41 ° 25 '53.2 " N , 19 ° 40' 20.6" E | |
| Height: | 260 m above sea level A. | |
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The castle of Preza ( Albanian Kalaja e Prezës ) is the ruin of a hilltop castle on the hill between the plains of Tirana and Durrës in central Albania . It played a strategically important role for the region, especially in the Middle Ages , as it controlled the road from Durrës to Kruja in the plain of Tirana and served as a signal point for the exchange of visual messages between the castle of Kruja , the castle of Petrela and Durrës.
Preza Castle is part of Albania's national cultural heritage.
location
The castle is located in the village of Preza on the edge of the range of hills, which drops steeply 250 meters to the plain of Tirana. Tirana Airport is located below the castle in the east . It is 15 kilometers to the Adriatic Sea in the west. Across the plain on the opposite slope lies Kruja.
history
The castle hill was built in the 2nd to 3rd centuries BC. First attached.
The Albanian Catholic cleric Marin Barleti (1450-1512 / 13) mentions Preza or Little Tirana (Alb. Tirana e Vogël ) in his Skanderbeg biography Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi Epirotarum principis from 1510 and calls it a small town of the Parthines , one Illyrian tribe . This city of the Parthines was also mentioned by Gaius Julius Caesar in his De bello civili as the camp of Pompey .
The castle of Preza was built by the Ottomans , probably between 1431 and 1466. The first mention of the place as Prizde comes from 1431 . Certain authors suggest that the fortress was built during the first siege of Kruja in 1450, while others assume that it was irrelevant in Skanderbeg's time.
According to the Italian Catholic priest Giammaria Biemmi , the wedding between Mamica Kastrioti - the younger sister of the local Prince Skanderbeg - and Muzakë Thopia , the lord of Petrela , took place in the castle on January 26, 1445 . Skanderbeg had arranged the marriage and selected Preza as the place of marriage because he wanted to honor the trust of the lords of Preza, the Prezgjani . Barleti, on the other hand, wrote that the fortress was in ruins in Skanderbeg's time. It may have been destroyed by his troops.
In the course of the 15th century, the Ottomans finally took the area. At the beginning of the 16th century the castle was renewed and the gate building was rebuilt. The courtyard-facing part of the gate building was converted into a mosque . A corresponding mention comes from the year 1547, when an imam had to be appointed for the mosque. A square clock tower described by Johann Georg von Hahn in 1852 , which had been erected on the foundation of the round east tower, was renewed in 1858, according to the inscription. Before 2014, it served as a minaret for the mosque after the original minaret was destroyed by dictator Enver Hoxha's atheism campaign from 1967 onwards.
In the 1930s the complex was opened to tourists and a café was set up in the northeast tower. Restoration work was carried out in 1966. In May 2014, the restored mosque with a new minaret was inaugurated at a ceremony with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan .
The castle was damaged in the earthquake in Albania on November 26, 2019 , and the clock tower partially collapsed.
investment
The castle is around 80 meters long and 50 meters wide. The pentagonal fortress walls surround what is now an empty courtyard. They are 1.4 meters wide and 6.5 meters high. Four round corner towers contained two to three guns. Some sources mention another square watchtower either on the south-west wall or in the south-east, which cannot be detected. The only access is in the south wall and leads through the gate building, consisting of a small forecourt and the mosque. The clock tower, destroyed in World War I , was rebuilt in the 1930s - but now without the steep pitched roof and with a modified upper end.
“The picturesque little nest lies… on a narrow mountain ridge that suddenly falls against the Išmital . The houses are grouped around the age-gray walls of a fort…. Like the Petrejla castle, the building sits on the highest point of the ridge and encloses the entire small summit area. "
A little outside the complex in front of the entrance is a fountain by a Tekke from the 18th or 19th century.
literature
- Lazër Papajani: Kalaja e Prezës . In: Monumentet . tape 7-8 . Tirana 1974, p. 167-178 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Gazmend Bakiu: Tirana e vjetër . Mediaprint, Tirana 2013, ISBN 978-9928-08101-8 .
- ↑ a b c Historiku i kalasë dhe Sahatit. (No longer available online.) In: Preza ime. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013 ; Retrieved November 22, 2013 (Albanian).
- ↑ a b Oliver Gilkes: Albanian - An Archaeological Guide . IB Tauris, London 2013, ISBN 978-1-78076-069-8 , Preza, pp. 244 f .
- ^ A b c Machiel Kiel : Ottoman architecture in Albania (1385–1912) . In: Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture (Ed.): Islamic art series . tape 5 . Istanbul 1990, ISBN 92-9063-330-1 , pp. 220 f .
- ↑ Armanda Shtembari: Turqia restauron 4 xhami të vjetra shqiptare, edhe në Kalanë e Prezës. In: Shqiptarja.com. May 14, 2014, accessed January 13, 2016 (Albanian).
- ↑ Foto-Tërmeti / Dëmtohet Kalaja e Prezës dhe Krujës. In: cna.al . November 27, 2019, accessed November 27, 2019 (Albanian).
- ↑ Kalaja e Prezës, Tiranë. (PDF) In: Instituti i Monumenteve të Kulturës. Retrieved April 5, 2018 (Albanian).
- ^ Camillo Praschniker, Arnold Schober: Archaeological research in Albania and Montenegro . In: Academy of Sciences in Vienna (ed.): Writings of the Balkan Commission . Antiquarian Department Book VIII. Vienna 1919.