Prehistory (2800–450 BC) The castle's site, like today's city, has been inhabited for thousands of years, because it is strategically located in the center of Europe at a passage between the
Carpathians and the
Alps, at an important
ford used to cross the
Danube river, and at an important crossing of central European ancient (trade) routes running from the
Balkans or the
Adriatic Sea to the
Rhine river or the
Baltic Sea, the most important route being the
Amber Route. The people of the
Boleráz culture (the oldest phase of the
Baden culture) were the first known culture to have constructed settlements on the castle hill. This happened around 3500 BC (i.e., in the high
Eneolithic Period). Their "castle" was a fortified settlement and a kind of
acropolis for settlements in today's Old Town of Bratislava. Further major findings from the castle hill are from the
Hallstatt Period (Early
Iron Age, 750 –450 BC). At that time, the people of the Kalenderberg Culture constructed a building plunged into the rock of the castle hill. Again, the "castle" served as an acropolis for settlements found in the western part of the Old Town.
Celts and Romans (450 BC – 5th century AD) During the
La Tène Period (Late Iron Age,
Celtic Period, 450 BC –1 BC), the castle hill became an important center of the Celts. In the last century BC (after 125 BC), it served as the acropolis of an oppidum (town) of the Celtic
Boii. A great number and diversity of findings (including coins, house equipment, two Roman buildings, castle entrance gate, etc.) testifies to this. The castle hill, which was situated at the Danube and thus since 9 BC at the border of the
Roman Empire, was also settled by the Romans during the Roman Period (1st to 4th century AD), as findings of bricks of
Roman legions (
Legion XIII GAN, Legion X GEPF etc.) and some parts of architecture (a Roman figural relief, roof parts, etc.) suggest. The developments in the 5th century (the time of the
Great Migration of Peoples) are largely unclear.
Slavs, Nitrian Principality, Great Moravia (500–907) The situation changed with the arrival of the
Slavs in the territory of Bratislava. Initially, they partly used older Roman and Celtic structures and added some fortifications. Probably at the end of the 8th century (definitely not later than in the early 9th century), at the time of the
Principality of Nitra, a Slavic castle with a wooden rampart was constructed, with a huge area of 55,000 square metres. In the second half of the 9th century, at the time of
Great Moravia, a palace of stone surrounded by dwellings and a big
basilica were added. The basilica is the largest Great Moravian basilica from the territory of Slovakia, and the area of the castle is approximately the same as that of the
Mikulčice site (the historical town "Moravia"), which is the most important Great Moravian archaeological site. Material from old Roman buildings was used to construct this Slavic castle in Bratislava. This could be a confirmation of the disputed statement of
Aventinus from the 16th century, who—referring to lost sources—claimed that around 805/7, the Great Moravian prince Uratislaus (i.e., Vratislav) constructed today's Bratislava (castle?) at the place of a destroyed Roman frontier fort called Pisonium, and the new settlement was named after him, Uratislaburgium/Wratisslaburgium. Another probable fact is that around 900, the castle and the territory it controlled was given in
fief to Predslav, the third son of the Great Moravian king
Svatopluk I and that Pre(d) slav, or a person of the same name, is the person after which the castle and the town received its old German name
Pressburg (from which the old Slovak name
Prešporek is derived). The oldest version of this name was
Preslava (Slovak) /
Preslav(a) sburg (German). It appeared for the first time in 907 (
Battle of Pressburg) in the forms
Brezalauspurc(h),
Braslavespurch, and
Pressalauspruch, and then around 1000 on
Hungarian coins as
Preslav(v) a Civitas (meaning Bratislava Castle). On the other hand, the exact location of
Brezalauspurc is still disputed.
High and Late Middle Ages (907–1531) losing his fleet below Pressburg Castle, 14th-century manuscript. The construction of a new castle of stone started in the 10th century, but work lagged. Under
King Stephen I of Hungary (1000–1038), however, the castle was already one of the central castles of the
Kingdom of Hungary. It became the seat of
Pozsony county and protected the kingdom against
Bohemian (Czech) and German attacks (e.g., in 1030, 1042, 1052, 1108, 1146) and played an important role in throne struggles, such as the one following the death of Stephen I. In 1052,
Henry III tried to occupy the castle. According to Hungarian tradition,
Zotmund, a Hungarian soldier, swam to the ships of the invading fleet to drill holes in them, and they were sunk. King
Solomon of Hungary had lived here until he was taken to the jail of
Nitra, according to
Ladislaus I's order. At the same time, the old rampart was modernized, and the Church of the St. Savior, with a
chapter and a church school, were added.
Stephen III of Hungary escaped from his enemies to the castle almost 100 years later. The castle was turned into a proto-
Romanesque palace of stone in the 12th century (probably after 1179), possibly because
Béla III (1173–1196) decided to make
Esztergom the definitive seat of kings of Hungary. It was a palace similar to those constructed in Germany under
Friedrich Barbarossa. In 1182,
Friedrich Barbarossa gathered his
crusader army under the castle. The church institutions and building at the castle were moved to the town below the castle in the early 12th century. The well-fortified
Pressburg castle was among the few in the Kingdom of Hungary to be able to withstand
Mongol attacks in 1241 and 1242. As a reaction to these attacks, a huge "tower for the protection of the kingdom" was constructed at the castle building in 1245, immediately next to two older palaces. The tower was actually a huge residential building. In addition, seven square towers were built into the old rampart, and a stone wall was added around the castle proper (i.e., the residential building). The biggest of the rampart towers was at the same time a corner tower of the stone wall. Today, it is part of the castle building—it is identical to the present-day "crown tower", which is the largest of the four existing towers of the structure. It was probably built around 1250, when the
Knights of St. John were active at the castle. On 25 October 1265, the Czech king,
Přemysl Otakar, and the Hungarian king
Béla IV's grandchild
Kunigunde, were engaged here.
Andrew II and
Gertrude's daughter,
Elisabeth was born here. The new castle faced further conflicts. In 1271, king
Otakar II of Bohemia invaded Hungarian territory (today's western Slovakia) and charged the knight Egid with the administration of the conquered castle. Egid rebelled two years later and was defeated, but due to problems in Bohemia, Otakar had to leave this territory. In 1285–86, the noble
Nicholas Kőszegi occupied the castle in order to use it as a basis for a rebellion against the Hungarian king, but he was defeated. Shortly afterwards, in 1287–1291, the Austrian duke
Albert of Habsburg, supporting Nicholas, occupied the castle but was defeated by
Matthew III Csák, who was made head of Pozsony county. A successful Austrian occupation of the castle and the county occurred in 1302–1312/1322 by
Duke Rudolf. As a result of this permanent fighting, the Hungarian king granted the city rights (town charter) to a part of the settlements below the castle in 1291, thereby withdrawing them from the authority of the county head in the castle. Some settlements on the castle hill remained under the castle's authority, and the fortification was gradually extended to them. In 1385, king
Sigismund of Luxembourg occupied the castle and Pozsony county and one year later put the county in
pawnage to his cousins, the Moravian
margraves Prokop and Jošt, in exchange for a loan. The castle was reconquered by
Stibor of Stiboricz in 1389, who was made the head of Pozsony county in 1389–1402 as a reward. He had a chapel built in Bratislava Castle. on a picture from the 15th century Another ally of king Sigismund, especially in his fights against the Czech
Hussites, was the noble family Rozgonyi, which received the Pozsony county head function in 1421. At some point between 1420 and 1430, Sigismund (
Holy Roman Emperor) decided to make Bratislava Castle –due to its central location —the center of his new German-Czech-Hungarian empire. In 1423, the king ordered the Rozgonyis to improve the fortifications of the castle as a protection against Hussite attacks, because it was situated close to the Czech border and was only protected by the old wooden ramparts. This was replaced with a stone bulwark. Between 1431 and 1434, a total rearrangement of Pressburg castle took place. Experts from Germany were invited, material was transported from Austria, and towns were imposed special taxes specifically for the construction of the largest castle ever built. The construction master was Konrad von Erlingen. The residential "tower" was demolished, and the form of the new Gothic palace was approximately similar to that of the present-day castle (but without two towers). Today, the only completely preserved part of the castle from that time is the Sigismund Gate (wrongly called the Corvinus Gate), i.e., the eastern entrance gate in the bulwark. Smaller parts have been preserve in the main palace. Sigismund's plans, however, did not materialize, because the castle never became his residence, and he remained in the town below the castle. After Sigismund's death in 1437, his widow,
Barbara of Celje, was imprisoned in the castle by the new king, Albert of Habsburg. In 1438, Albert's daughter,
Anne, was engaged to the margrave
William III, Landgrave of Thuringia in the castle.
John Hunyadi and his wife
Erzsébet Szilágyi also stayed here. Later on,
Ladislas the Posthumous possibly lived in the castle (parts of it were adapted for him). In 1440–1443, there was fighting between Pressburg Castle, ruled by county heads from the Rozgonyi family (supporting king
Władysław III of Poland) and the town of Pressburg itself. Castle repairs were conducted in 1438, 1452, and 1463. A water well was constructed in the yard of the castle in the 15th century.
Main castle of the Kingdom of Hungary (1531–1783) Political events In 1536 (de facto already in 1531), after the
Turks had conquered present-day Hungary, Pressburg became the capital (seat of the
diet and central authorities, place of coronations) of the remaining Kingdom of Hungary, which was renamed
Royal Hungary and was ruled by the Austrian
Habsburgs. Consequently, Pressburg Castle became the most important royal castle and the formal seat of the kings of Royal Hungary (who, however, resided in Vienna normally). At the same time, from the beginning of the 16th century, Pressburg and its castle had to face various anti-Habsburg uprisings in Royal Hungary on the territory of what is now Slovakia. For example, troops of
Gabriel Bethlen occupied the castle between 1619 and 1621, when it was reconquered by
Habsburg troops, and had the royal crown removed from Pressburg Castle until 1622. Between 1671 and 1677, Pressburg Castle was home to a court against the
Protestants and participants of anti-Habsburg uprisings.
Imre Thököly, the leader of another major anti-Habsburg uprising, failed to conquer the castle in 1682–83.
Holy Crown of Hungary in the crown tower Between 1552 and 1784, the
Holy Crown of Hungary stayed in the castle. Two Hungarian crown guards, fifty Hungarian and fifty Austrian infantry soldiers cared for it. Hungarian kings who derived from foreign dynasties as Habsburgs could not possess it and only had access to the crown during their coronation ceremony.
Renaissance conversion Immediately after the defeat of the Kingdom of Hungary at the
battle at Mohács in 1526, during which the king died, the queen—
Maria of Habsburg—fled with her retinue from
Buda to Pressburg. The royal treasure (mostly valuable objects of art, the royal
scepter,
apple, and sword) and many other important objects she has taken with her were deposited in Pressburg Castle and guarded by the royal
burgrave John Bornemisza. Shortly afterwards, however, this precious treasure was mostly destroyed by the new king
Ferdinand I of Habsburg, who needed it to finance his participation in a civil war in Royal Hungary, and smaller parts went to the Treasury Chamber of Vienna (Wiener Schatzkammer) or became personal property of Maria, or were lost forever. Taking into account the new role of the castle, Ferdinand I had it rebuilt into a Renaissance castle by Italian builders and artists, such as Giulio Licino da Pordanone and Maciotanus Ulisses from Rome, between 1552 and 1562 (with some work continuing even afterwards). The main designer and supervisor of the construction was the Italian architect Pietro Ferrabosco, who had been serving the emperor in Vienna and knew Count Eck Salm, the captain of Pressburg from 1552 –1571. The building's form did not change (except that the entrance was shifted), but it was completely changed inside and outside. Above all, floors and rooms were rearranged, and most rooms received precious ornaments. In the late 16th century, a building for ball games at the eastern wall and a second, better water well were added. Other improvements were made and structures added over the years. In terms of the castle's functions after 1530, it was home to selected participants of diet meetings, and since 1552, it has held the
crown jewels, in what is today known as the Crown Tower.
Baroque conversions Early Baroque Since some of the Renaissance changes were done in haste (especially the wooden roof), as early as in 1616, a new, gradual Early
Baroque reconstruction started, based on a design by the main imperial architect
Giovanni Battista Carlone. The works were intensified in 1635 and finished around 1647. It was mostly financed by Count
Paul Pálffy, the captain of the castle and head of Pozsony county. The look the castle received through this conversion is basically the one it has kept to the present. The northern and western part of the main building were newly built and a new, third floor was added; the main entrance was shifted back to the middle of the wall; the ancient fortifications were improved; the chapel was shifted from the southern part to the northern part (today's Music Hall); and two new towers were added—yielding in sum the present four towers in the corners. As a reward for not having misappropriated state funds during the conversion, the diet appointed Pálffy lifelong captain of Pressburg Castle, head of Pozsony county, and
usufructuary of the castle (which remained in possession of the crown), in 1650. One year later, the emperor made those functions and titles hereditary for the Pálffys. In 1653, all wooden ceilings turned out to be defective and had to be replaced in the following years, so that precious paintings placed on them got lost. Ten years later, facing one of the frequent Turkish attacks to the territory of Slovakia, the fortifications were improved under the leadership of military engineer Josef Priami of the Imperial Court in Vienna; further improvements of the fortifications followed around 1673. They ended with the final defeat of the Turks at Vienna in 1683. In 1703, barracks were built in the northeast of the site, and the armoury was turned into barracks as well. The present-day Vienna Gate was constructed on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor
Charles VI in 1712, and it has been used as the main entrance to the castle since then.
Maria Theresa conversion When
Maria Theresa of Austria became the queen of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1740, she promised to the nobles of the kingdom that she would have a residence both in Pressburg and in Austria. A corresponding conversion of the defensive castle into a modern royal residence was performed between 1761 and 1766. Minor changes were made as early as 1740: besides various changes in the interior, a large garden was added in the northern part of the site, and Emperor
Francis I (Maria Theresa's husband, who was interested in botany) created a small garden to the east of the castle building. The chief designer until 1757 was
J. B. Martinelli. Major changes inside the castle (in the
rococo style) were begun in 1760. The chief designer between 1761 and 1762 was
Franz Anton Hillebrandt. A new single-story building for the kitchen, servants, and horses was added to the western wall of the castle. Because the water supply for the castle was not sufficient, Maria Theresa had
Johann Wolfgang von Kempelen build a special water pipe drawing water from a tank in the town at the Danube bank, using pumps. The stairs throughout the castle were rebuilt with a lower gradient, on Maria Theresa's request, to enable her to ride her horse upon them. The result of these changes, as for the exterior of the palace itself and the site gates, was very similar to Bratislava Castle as it stands today. Due to disputes with
Hungarian nobles, Maria Theresa did not appoint a
palatine, who used to represent the nobles, and instead in 1765 appointed a governor for the Kingdom of Hungary, who obeyed the queen. Bratislava Castle became his seat, and the office of the county head left the castle. The second governor was
Albert of Saxe-Teschen, from 1765, the queen's son-in-law—the husband of her favorite daughter,
Marie Christine of Austria. Albert and Maria Christine moved to the castle in 1766. Since both of them were promoters of culture and science, the castle and the town became places of frequent events and visits in the sphere of culture and science. Because the governor did not have enough space, a new palace (later called the Theresianum) was built at the eastern wall of the castle building in 1767–1770, designed by
F. A. Hillebrandt in the
classic style. Its furnishings were expensive and precious and included hundreds of objects of art. The first floor was home to a family gallery, which later became the basis of today's
Albertina Gallery in Vienna. In addition, a winter riding school was added at the northern end of the castle site, a summer riding school was situated directly in the castle yard, both castle gardens were adapted (in the
Schönbrunn style), and night lighting using oil lanterns was introduced on the access road to the castle for the first time in history. In 1770, Maria Theresa herself ordered further valuable paintings and furniture to be provided to both the main castle and the Theresianum, and the governor moved into the completed building.
Loss of importance and destruction (1783–1811) The office of governor of the Kingdom of Hungary was re-abolished in 1781 by the new king,
Joseph II, and Albert of Sachsen-Teschen left the castle and took many parts of the equipment away. The (present-day Albertina Gallery) art collection went partly to Vienna and partly to Belgium, where Albert became a new governor. Other objects moved mostly to Vienna. In 1783, Pressburg ceased to be the seat of central authorities of the kingdom; they were moved to Buda (now
Budapest). The crown jewels of the Kingdom of Hungary were moved to the
Hofburg in Vienna. In 1784, the Theresianum, some other secondary buildings of the site, and the gardens were adapted, as the castle became a "general seminary", which was a type of state school for
Catholic priests introduced by Joseph II. The general seminary of Pressburg Castle played an important role in Slovakia's history, having educated many important Slovak intellectuals, such as
Anton Bernolák, the author of the first successful codification of the
Slovak standard language. In 1802, the general seminary moved to another place, and the castle was assigned to the military as a barracks. This was the beginning of its end. The rococo interiors of the castle were adapted in order to house some 1,500 soldiers. In 1809, Pressburg and the castle were bombarded by
Napoleon's troops. On 28 May 1811, the castle burst into flames caused by the carelessness of garrison soldiers; the fire spread to parts of the town.
Castle in ruins (1811–1953) The destroyed castle gradually deteriorated, and the military sold parts of the main buildings as construction materials to the surrounding areas. Between the two
world wars, attempts were made to demolish the castle to build government offices and a university district on the castle hill and in its surroundings in the first
Czechoslovak Republic and the first
Slovak Republic. Many parts of the site continued to be used as barracks and adapted accordingly until 1946. In 1946, the ruin was opened to the public. Two years later, the town constructed an
amphitheater in the northern part of the castle site; this remained in use for some fifteen years. Films were shown there in the summer.
Restoration and modern history (after 1953) , at the Honorary Courtyard since 2010 that has been restored as part of renovation efforts. Finally, it was decided to restore the castle. Archaeological and architectural research started in 1953, and long restoration works began in 1957. The restoration was done to the last (Baroque) state of the main building, but at many places, older (Gothic, Renaissance) preserved elements or parts have been restored. The Theresianum has not been renovated, and the F. A. Hillebrandt building of 1762 was restored only around the year 2000. The Slovak painter
Janko Alexy gained recognition for his work on the castle. Construction was halted in August 1968, when the castle was occupied by
Warsaw Pact troops as part of the
Prague Spring. On 28 October 1968, however, the Federation Law, turning the centralist state of
Czechoslovakia into a federation of a
Czech Socialist Republic and a
Slovak Socialist Republic, was signed in the Federation Hall of the castle. On 3 September 1992, the new
constitution of independent Slovakia was signed in the Knights Hall. Since 1968, the castle has housed exhibitions of the
Slovak National Museum, and at the same time, its rooms have been used by the
National Council of the Slovak Republic for presentation purposes. A new restoration has been planned for years, because since 1968, only minor adaptations have been performed, such as the 1988 creation of the Treasure Chamber, the 1995 replacement of glass in the arcades of the solemn staircase, and the 1996–97 complete repair of the roof. The last minor adaptations occurred on the occasion of the
Bush-Putin Bratislava summit, in February 2005. A massive reconstruction was started in 2008 and was expected to last five years and cost 1.5–2 billion
Slovak korunas (47.06–62.75 million
euro). On 6 June 2010, the reconstruction of the Honorary Courtyard of Bratislava Castle was completed, with a nationally televised unveiling ceremony of an equestrian
statue of Svatopluk by sculptor Ján Kulich. ==See also==