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| a page adornment from a book printed at the Maciej Wierzbieta's print shop in Krakow, 1585 |
Salvete Omnes,
today we shall canter to one of the most picturesque places in Slovakia, where on a high rock above the Orava River there is a beautiful castle (very detailed history in Polish here). Known as Arwa or Orava,
this castle became the seat of the Thurzo family, when Ferenec Frantisek Thurzo, a bishop of Nitra in Kingdom of Hungary, fell in love with a daughter of Mikulas Kostka/Kosztka, left the priesthood and became thus the father of the Thurzo line from Orava.
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| Thurzo coat of arms |
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| bishop Ferenc Fratisek Thurzo coat of art, father of Gyorgy |
Inside the castle there are some interesting and beautiful elements worth our glance or two...
Including this funerary monument to Gyorgy Juraj Thurzo, a power magnate of the Upper Hungary as Slovakia was known then, and between 1609-1616AD Thurzo was the palatine of Hungary.
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| sir Gyorgy aka George was a famous warrior and commander. In this monument he appears as a winged hussar commander |
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| a little bit of a side view |
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| a closeup on the shishak helmet, sabre hilt and the sabre belt, and gilded finishing of his chain-mail sleeve |
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| in this print we see the splendor of this Hungarian nobleman's horse gear and also a horseman pick, a weapon going back to the Scythians and horse mounted warriors of Eurasia |
From the inside of the castle come this beautiful imagery of Saint George fighting the dragon,
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| Saint George appears to be armed and armored like a typical winged hussar of the period, 2nd half of the XVI, early XVII century |
while this detail above, of a wall painting shows a hunting scenes (with dogs, falconry, with a short boar spear chasing wild boar) , perhaps comes from an earlier period.
Valete
