Trsat Castle Gradina Trsat | |
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Rijeka Croatia | |
![]() Trsat Castle | |
Type | Castle |
Site history | |
Materials | Stone |
Trsat Castle (Croatian : Gradina Trsat) is a castle in Trsat, Croatia. It is thought that the castle lies at the exact spot of an ancient Illyrian and Roman fortress. The Croatian noble Vuk Krsto Frankopan is buried in one of the churches. The Trsat castle was completely reconstructed and renovated in the 19th century when the mausoleum of the military commander Laval Nugent was built in its interior. The courtyard of the castle has now been turned into a restaurant and many tourists visit the place during the summer months.
The thirteenth century Trsat castle, whose site has been in use from Roman days for being an easy place from which to control access to the sea along the Rječina River, is situated on the steep hill overlooking the Rječina gorge on its left bank, just above the town of Rijeka. It may be that a Iapodian hill-fort, Darsata, used to be there, after which the Roman fortification Tarsatica was named. This Roman fort was of vital importance on a road that connected Aquileia to Pannonia and Senia (Senj). It was owned by Frankopan family who built the present castle, on the site occupied by the Illirian Tarsatica, to protect their holdings in Vinodol. [1]
The capture of the Castle of Trsat compelled the Ban of Croatia, Andrew Bot of Bajna (Bajna is a village in Hungary, near Esztergom)), to intervene in the Austro-Venetian war, and in June 1509 he first recaptured Trsat with his Croatian army and then entered Rijeka after expelling the Venetians. In October 1509, the Venetians withdrew for good and Rijeka returned to the possessions of Maximilian of Habsburg. This notable episode is the sole event which links Rijeka with Venice, and consequently with Italy, during the whole of its history from the 7th century on. [2]
In the 17th century the castle fell into decay due to the receding threats from Venice and the Ottoman Empire. Its decline was accelerated by the earthquake of 1750. In the year 1811, during the Napoleonic wars, Captain Hoste in pursuit of the French, arrived with his frigate at Fiume where he made himself lieutenant-governor. The situation in Trieste soon drew him away, but in 1826 he had the satisfaction of handing the castle over to Field-Marshal Laval Nugent von Westmeath, an Irishman then commanding the Austrian troops in the vicinity, for the purpose of conferring on him the rank of an Austrian noble. The general was later honoured by the Austrians and presented with the castle at Trsat as his residence. [3] He had it restored in Neo-Gothic style and built a mausoleum adorned with the coat of arms of the Nugent family. It remained in the Nugent family until nearly the end of the Second World War when the general's great-granddaughter, Countess Nugent, died at the age of 82.
Rijeka ( ree-EK-ə, ree-AY-kə, ree-YEK-ə, Croatian:[rijěːka] ; local Chakavian: Reka or Rika; Slovene: Reka, Italian: Fiume, is the principal seaport and the third-largest city in Croatia. It is located in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and in 2021 had a population of 108,622 inhabitants. Historically, because of its strategic position and its excellent deep-water port, the city was fiercely contested, especially between the Holy Roman Empire, Italy and Croatia, changing rulers and demographics many times over centuries. According to the 2011 census data, the majority of its citizens are Croats, along with small numbers of Serbs, Bosniaks and Italians.
The House of Frankopan was a Croatian noble family, whose members were among the great landowner magnates and high officers of the Kingdom of Croatia in union with Hungary.
Pazin is a town in western Croatia, the administrative seat of Istria County. It is known for the medieval Pazin Castle, the former residence of the Istrian margraves.
The House of Zrinski or Zrínyi was a Croatian-Hungarian noble family, a cadet branch of the Croatian noble tribe of Šubić, influential during the period in history marked by the Ottoman wars in Europe in the Kingdom of Croatia's union with the Kingdom of Hungary and in the later Kingdom of Croatia as a part of the Habsburg monarchy. Notable members of this family were Bans of Croatia, considered national heroes in both Croatia and Hungary, and were particularly celebrated during the period of Romanticism, a movement which was called Zrinijada in Croatia.
Senj is a town on the upper Adriatic coast in Croatia, in the foothills of the Mala Kapela and Velebit mountains.
Krk is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of Primorje-Gorski Kotar county. Krk is tied with Cres as the largest Adriatic island, depending on the methodology used to measure the coastline. Krk is the most populous island in the Adriatic, with multiple towns and villages that contain a total of 19,916 (2021) inhabitants.
The Julian March, also called Julian Venetia, is an area of southern Central Europe which is currently divided among Croatia, Italy, and Slovenia. The term was coined in 1863 by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, a native of the area, to demonstrate that the Austrian Littoral, Veneto, Friuli, and Trentino shared a common Italian linguistic identity. Ascoli emphasized the Augustan partition of Roman Italy at the beginning of the Empire, when Venetia et Histria was Regio X.
The Austrian Littoral was a crown land (Kronland) of the Austrian Empire, established in 1849. It consisted of three regions: the Margraviate of Istria in the south, Gorizia and Gradisca in the north, and the Imperial Free City of Trieste in the middle. The region has been contested frequently, with parts of it controlled at various times by the Republic of Venice, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Yugoslavia among others.
Trsat is part of the city of Rijeka, Croatia, with a historic castle or fortress in a strategic location and several historic churches, in one of which the Croatian noble Prince Vuk Krsto Frankopan is buried. Trsat is a steep hill, 138 m high, rising over the gorge of the Rječina river, about a kilometre away from the sea; strategically significant from the earliest times right up to the 17th century, it is today a major Christian pilgrimage centre and home to a statue of Pope John Paul II who came to Trsat as a Pilgrim in 2003. Today, the University of Rijeka's newly constructed campus lies in the western part of Trsat.
The Rječina, also known as the Fiumara, is a river in Croatia that flows into the Adriatic Sea at the city of Rijeka.
Modruš is a village, former episcopal see, and current Latin Church Catholic titular see in the mountainous part of Croatia, located south of its municipality's seat Josipdol, on the easternmost slopes of Velika Kapela mountain, in northern Lika.
Bosiljevo is a village and municipality in Karlovac County, Croatia. It is located in the Gorski Kotar region, 25 km south-west from Karlovac, on the highways A1 and A6 leading to Zagreb, Rijeka and Split.
Laval Graf Nugent von Westmeath was a soldier of Irish birth, who fought in the armies of Austria and the Two Sicilies.
The siege of Trsat was a battle fought over possession of the town of Trsat in Liburnia, near the Croatian–Frankish border. The battle was fought in the autumn of 799 between the defending forces of Dalmatian Croatia under the leadership of Croatian duke Višeslav, and the invading Frankish army of the Carolingian Empire led by Eric of Friuli. The battle was a Croatian victory, and the Frankish commander Eric was killed during the siege.
Rijeka, formerly known as Fiume, is a city located in the northern tip of the Kvarner Gulf in the northern Adriatic. It is currently the third-largest city in Croatia. It was part of the Roman province of Dalmatia, and later of the Kingdom of Croatia. It grew during the 12th to 14th centuries as a seaport within the Holy Roman Empire, trading with Italian cities. Under the rule of the House of Habsburg from 1466, it was made a free city; and, although part of the Duchy of Carniola, it developed local self-government.
Istrian Italians are an ethnic group from the Adriatic region of Istria in modern northwestern Croatia and southwestern Slovenia. Istrian Italians descend from the original Latinized population of Roman Histria, from the Venetian-speaking settlers who colonized the region during the time of the Republic of Venice, and from the local Croatian people who culturally assimilated.
Christoph Frankopan was a Croatian count from the noble House of Frankopan. He was born in a dangerous time, which included the fall of Bosnia to the Ottoman Empire and the start of the Hundred Years' Croatian-Ottoman War. As a supporter of King John I of Hungary during the succession crisis between János Zápolya and Ferdinand Habsburg, he was named the ban of Croatia in 1526, and died the following year while leading an army financed by Zápolya.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Rijeka, Croatia.
Dalmatian city-states were the Dalmatian localities where the local Romance population survived the Barbarian invasions after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 400s CE. Eight little cities were created by indigenous inhabitants who maintained political links with the Eastern Roman Empire which defended these cities, enabling their commercial trade.
The Kurjaković family, also known as the Counts of Krbava, were a Croatian noble family that originated from the noble tribe of Gusić. It formed at the end of the 13th century, as descendants of Kurjak. They reached their peak as magnates between mid-14th and mid-15th century, having tight connections and high official positions at the Hungarian royal court, and dissolution in 1531 when the estates of magnate Ivan Karlović went to Nikola III Zrinski. Two members were Ban of Croatia, as well two were founding members of Order of the Dragon.