Căpâlnaş Castle

Căpâlnaş (spelled also Căpălnaş, Hungarian: Kápolnás), is a village belonging to Birchiş commune, Arad County, Banat, Romania. The village was first mentioned in 1369, as Capolna. Another documentary attestation dates from 1569. In 1965, here were excavated the remains of a medieval fortress with a watchtower.

The Mocioni Castle in Căpâlnaş is the most beautiful in Arad County by the perfect harmony of proportions and simple but elegant decoration of the facade. It was designed by Viennese architect Otto Wagner who raised the castle between 1876-1879. Otto Wagner was inspired by Little Trianon at Versailles, but he did not made a facsimile of the famous model.

The Viennese architect used for the facade grooved columns, which ends with richly decorated capitals. The central stairway climbs into large folds (aesthetic closer rather to Rococo style) to a terrace located in the middle of the main facade. The ascending stairs focuses on the vertical lines of the building. In the upper register of the palace, the main design element is the cornice, artistic enlaced. The access on the terrace is made by three doors, which communicates with the ground floor lounge, where a ladder climb upstairs. The 8 hectares park offers the best conditions for rest and recreation. In front of the terrace there is a fountain in the middle of which is to be found - as in the French castles - the statue of a deer.

The Mocioni family has a rich history. In 1747, Constantine Mocioni, an Aromanian Orthodox priest, left Macedonia and settled in Hungary. The five sons were tradesmen in Budapest, gathering an impressive fortune. Two of them, Andrei and Mihai, were ennobled by Emperor Joseph II and are the ancestors of the two branches of the family: the Mocioni and de Foeni. The history of Căpâlnaş is linked with the evolution of the Mocioni branch of the family, that had initially domains in Tokay, Hungary. Mihai Mocioni's two sons were ennobled by Austrian Emperor Francisc I. Another Mihai (1811-1890) married on 2 February 1836, with his cousin, Ecaterina, from de Foeni branch, unifying the two families. Meanwhile, Ioan Mocioni de Foeni, Ecaterina's father, purchased in 1853 from Counts Alfred, Janos, Gyorgy and Camilo Zichy, 6000 acres of land in Căpâlnaş, for an amount of 260 thousand florins.

Ecaterina and Mihai Mocioni decided to establish here, and they built the French style palace that will be inherited by the last two sons, Alexandru and Eugen. The last owners of the castle were Eugen's children: Petru, Ionel and Ecaterina. Ecaterina married Count Teleki Jeno. In 1948 the castle and estates were nationalized, and later was transformed in a neuro-psychiatric hospital.

Photos from Consiliul Judeţean Arad.

Glodeni Castle

Glodeni (former Şarpotoc, Şarpatoc; Hungarian: Marossárpatak, Sárpatak; German: Scharpendorf, Schellenberg, Kothbach; trad. Muddy Creek) is a village in Mureş County, Transylvania, Romania.

Glodeni was attested in 1263. In the Papal documents, it appears on May 13, 1319, when King Carol of Hungary has donated to Simion, son of Michael, Count of Şemlacul Mare and of Caraş, properties in several villages including Glodeni, for his faith to the king. The residents of this village, Romanians and Hungarians, were for centuries serfs of the Teleki and Bornemisza families.

In 1675, the Glodeni domain was acquired by Count Teleki Mihály. In the early 19th century, were built here two lesser-known castles for the Teleki familiey. One of them, the castle on the hill, had only one floor and was destroyed by Count Teleki József during crisis after World War II. The entire area was divided for the villagers to build houses.

The second castle, which still guards the village center, was built in Empire style (1872), surrounded by a vast courtyard and a romantic park on the model of the noblemen courts in the surroundings of Budapest. Much greater than the building on the hill, he looked in shape and arrangement as the Teleki Castle in Dumbrăvioara.

The castle of Glodeni is distinct of other such buildings by its greatness: the main entrance was marked by Corinthian columns, the cellars were vaulted and spacious, the staircase and the carriage parking were built in Baroque style, and the salons were very large, decorated with miniature statues. The interior was not sumptuous decorated, but on the walls were exposed works of famous artists of the 18th century. Also, the family library was invaluable, the counts collecting books from around the world.

The last owner of the domain was Count Teleki Károly. After the WWII, the domain was nationalized, and in 1952, there was established a Care and Support Center for Persons with Disabilities. Today, the castle is still a property of the Romanian state, but its legal status is uncertain. The building was well maintained, the whole area being in a good condition.

Images from here.

Ocna Mureş Castle

Ocna Mureş (Hungarian: Marosújvár, German: Miereschhall) is a town in Alba County, Romania, located in the north-eastern corner of the county, near the Mureş River. The town is situated next to a large deposit of salt. The city was attested as a Roman civilian settlement in Dacia (II-III century AD), known for salt exploitation, as Salinae.

The Teleki Castle in Uioara de Sus (Upper Uioara), a district of Ocna Mureş, was first an medieval castle. In a document from 1290, it was named Castrum Novum (New Castle), supporting the existence of an earlier fortification (10th-11th centuries), from which can be seen today portions of a mound with a ditch. This New Castle was built at the end of the 13th century by order of the Hungarian Crown, to protect the neighboring salt mine. It was then attested in documents of 1336 and 1382. During the 14th century the castle became the property of some nobles.

In 1576 it was the property of Báthori Kristóf, who left it in 1581 to Gálfi János. Michael the Brave donated the castle and the Uioara domain to his counselor Mihalcea, Great Ban of Craiova (1599). In 1620 Prince Bethlen Gábor donate the benefits of the castle and town to the orphaned son of Siményfalvi Székely Mózes. Mikes Mihály acquired the castle during the reign of Apafi Mihály I, and his family owned it until the middle of the 19th century. The Latvian count Mikó Imre repaired the castle and converted it in Baroque style.

The castle was partially demolished to permit the construction (between 1850-1860) of an impressive neo-Gothic castle for the Banffy noble family, building which later became the property of Teleki counts. From the medieval castle can still be seen today the ruins of a pentagonal tower, representing an old dungeon.

The building has a square plan, with ground floor and two levels. The residential building is adjacent to annexes for management staff and estate maintenance. In the court there is a wine cellar and a chapel, which was originally equipped with an organ. The Teleki family arranged around the castle a park with paths and trees, including some rare acclimatized species.

The complex includes the ruins of a church, built in Romanesque style around 1300. There are still preserved some brick walls and a bell tower, that has windows with cubic capitals. Over time, it underwent several major changes. The castle is a historical monument.

Fotos from Ocna Mureş Online.

Gorneşti Castle

Gorneşti (Hungarian: Gernyeszeg) is a commune in Mureş County, Romania. It is situated on Mureş River, 17 km from Târgu-Mureş and has a Székely Hungarian majority (75%). The village was documentary attested in 1319 (as Knezeg), when the king of Hungary, Carol Robert of Anjou, donated it to the Prince of Transylvania, Szecseny Tamas. The Szecseny family owned the domain until 1395, when changed some properties with a certain Zsigmund. Between 1405-1642 it belonged to Erdelyi of Somkerek, then was in possession of the Teleki family until 1949. It seems that in the 15th-16th centuries here was a landlord residence, fortified with walls and water ditches.

 

Teleki is a prominent name in the history of Transylvania and Hungary. The aristocratic family was actively involved throughout the centuries in both political-administrative and cultural activities. In 1685, Mihaly Teleki (1634-1690) became Count of the Holy Roman Empire, receiving the title from Emperor Leopold I. But the most famous family member was Sámuel Teleki (1739-1822), chancellor of Transylvania and founder of the Teleki Library in Târgu-Mureş. The most interesting character in the family is certainly the famous explorer of Africa, Sámuel Teleki (1845-1916).

The castle, built between 1771-1778 and finalized in 1802 by Count László Teleki, is a representative example of Baroque architecture in Transylvania. The project seems to be realized by architect Andreas Mayerhoffer from Salzburg, the castle resembling with the palaces Pécel and Godollo made by him. It was built into an impressive arboretum, in so-called Grassalkovich style, very popular in Budapest, and is the only one in Transylvania that hosts a Baroque statues park.

The U-shaped architectural composition is balanced, the central body is "en decroche" and the decorative elements are elegantly articulated. The facade is marked in its center by a raised risalit with rounded corners. The high roof with a huge cupola in the middle has skylights and a clock on top. From the main body of the building starts two wings to the garden. The castle has 52 rooms and 365 windows, symbolizing the weeks and days of the year.

In the Baroque period, the emphasis was on illustrating the social status. In this residence, this is highlighted by space representation, main hall, monumental staircase, rooms for receptions, areas for study - especially the library - and spaces for different types of artistic performances.

The explorer Sámuel Teleki (1845-1916) kept in the castle his collection of illustrations and the family's library, including 6,000 volumes. Unfortunately, a large part of it was destroyed during the two world wars. Count Domokos Teleki (1880-1955), a carpet collector and scholar, kept his Oriental and Occidental rugs in Gorneşti Castle. Unfortunately the Teleki Collection was never published, although its richness can be guessed at from a few pieces now in the Hungarian National Museum and in the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts, among them a 17th century Ushak medallion carpet fragment (numbered 1292 in the Teleki Collection inventory!).

The garden started to be laid out between the building and the moat in 1782, during the ownership of József I Teleki. The earliest known garden scheme, dating from c.1792, features ornamental parterres. However, József I Teleki, probably inspired by Rousseau, with whom he was personally acquainted, wished to lay out a landscape garden at that time.

In the early decades of the 19th century, his son József II Teleki, who had traveled in England as well, brought the landscape garden to completion. For this purpose, the moat at certain points was widened to form pools, and filled up at others. The garden's most significant edifice is József II Teleki's monument erected by his widow after his death in 1817 in the middle of the park. A design dating from 1831 features, in addition, a gloriette and an obelisk. A fine collection of deciduous trees were enriched with conifers from the 1850s.

The garden's last significant phase of improvement took place at the beginning of the 20th century when Domokos Teleki aquired some 18th-century statuary for the park. Seven mythological statues may originally have stood in the garden of Starhemberg Palace in Vienna before being transported to a private garden in Buda in the 19th century. Also among these newly acquired statues is a group of four gnomes, originally part of a series. Park paths and banks of ponds were decorated with numerous allegorical statues, but busts, such as Mirabeau's or Louis XVI, works by sculptor Martinelli.

The last owner of the castle, Count Mihaly Teleki, donated it to the sanitary authorities of Romania. At the moment, the castle shelters the Tuberculosis Observation Sanatorium and it is claimed in court.

Photos from here.

The Teleki Library

The Teleki Library, also known as Teleki-Bolyai Library and Bibliotheca Telekiana, is a historic public library and current museum in Târgu-Mureş, Romania. One of the richest Transylvanian collections of cultural artifacts, it was founded by the Hungarian Count Sámuel Teleki in 1802, at the time when Transylvania was part of the Habsburg Monarchy, and has been open to the reading public ever since. It was among the first institutions of its kind inside the Habsburg-ruled Kingdom of Hungary.


Teleki inherited the 17-18th century Baroque building in which the library is housed from the Wesselényi family. Inside the wing built between the years 1799 and 1802, books are still stored in accordance to the original guidelines.


The founder of this library, Count Sámuel Teleki de Szék (1739-1822) was one of the most learned book collectors of the time. From the very beginning, he intended his collection as a public library, and developed it throughout his life; he remained a committed and active bibliophile despite his time-consuming administrative career — he was Chancellor of Transylvania from 1791 until his death — building on his relations with all important European printing and publishing houses, and purchasing all important works published between the invention of the movable type and the early 1800s. In order to publicize his library, Teleki compiled and published a four-volume catalogue (Vienna, 1796-1819), divided according to general topics. Teleki's own instructions concerning the operation of the library are also presented in the catalogue (Volume II).


According to the surviving accounts of the librarians, which contain the names and professions of the readers, as well as the authors and titles of the books read, the facility was attended by a sizable portion of the 6,000-7,000 citizens Târgu-Mureş had at the time. It provided them access to European scientific life and to Age of Enlightenment ideas.


Upon his death, Sámuel Teleki left the library to his heirs as an entailed property; they were bound to keep the library open and running and were supervised by the High Board of the Reformed Church. Nevertheless, book acquisition became unsystematic soon after his death. For the following century, the Bibliotheca Telekiana was more of a book museum than a library. It was only towards the end of the 1800s that systematic research was initiated.


In 1951, the Library was nationalized by the Communist regime, and, in 1955, the Teachers' Library of the Protestant College (now known as the Bolyai Library) was moved into the building (the two collections merged under the name of Teleki-Bolyai Library). In 1974, the unified collection has become a branch of the Mureş County Library. Today, the continuously growing book collection is focused on scientific subjects, especially in history, local history, cultural history, and social sciences. The museum is visited by thousands of tourists a year. It houses over 200,000 volumes, of which many are rarities, constituting a comprehensive scientific database. The book collection is divided into several smaller libraries, of which the two main donations are the original 40,000-volume Teleki Library and the 80,000-volume Bolyai Library; the rest, grouped as the Miscellaneous Collection, is made up of several private libraries, volumes previously held by religious schools and those of a Franciscan monastery. Overall, the library constitutes a collection of most traditional types of Transylvanian book.