Sárvár Castle

Sárvár Castle [ˈnaːdɒʒdi] is a fortified castle in the town of Sárvár in Hungary.

The castle-like former moated castle was built in the Renaissance around 1560 on the site of an older complex. The original complex, erected by the land-taking Magyars, had been an early medieval earthen castle. This, however, stood a few hundred metres away.

The Renaissance complex was later rebuilt in the Baroque style and its interior redesigned in accordance with the new taste of the time. At the beginning of the 17th century Countess Elizabeth Báthory, later convicted as a murderer, lived here. In the state hall of the complex the victorious battles of her husband Ferenc Nádasdy, the "Black Knight", against the Turks are depicted in paintings by the Viennese painter Hans Rudolf Müller from 1653. In 1769 Stephan Dorfmeister decorated the banqueting hall and the tower room with frescoes depicting scenes from the Old Testament, including Mordecai and Esther, Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath, Ahasuerus and Esther, Joshua, Judith and Holofernes, Jael and Sisera, the sacrifice of Gideon and the anointing of David as king.

In 1875 the Wittelsbachs inherited the castle from Duke Francis V of Modena and remained the last owners before the castle was nationalised after the Second World War. In 1921 Ludwig III, the last Bavarian king until 1918, died here while travelling. His younger son Prince Franz inherited the castle in Sárvár. The family of his nephew Albrecht of Bavaria, living in emigration in Budapest from 1939, visited him here repeatedly.

In 1945 Soviet troops were quartered in the castle, before in 1949 the now nationalised castle was handed over to the town of Sárvár, which established flats and an agricultural school in it.

Machine-translated from “Schloss Nádasdy” on the German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sárvár Castle ranks #5,235 of 8,133 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #34 of the 135 mapped in Hungary. Founded c. 1560, it is older than 38% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 755 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,443 times in the last 60 days, more than 58% of the atlas. 2 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how Hungary compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in German) ↗