Corvin Castle

Corvin Castle, also known as Hunyadi Castle, stands on a limestone rock in the south-west of Hunedoara, at Strada Castelului 1-3. Most researchers date the first stone fortification on the site to the fourteenth century. On 18 October 1409, King Sigismund of Luxembourg granted the castle and estate of Hunedoara to Voicu, a knight of the royal court and father of John Hunyadi (Iancu de Hunedoara), together with his kinsmen. After 1440, John Hunyadi turned the existing fortification into the family castle: the chapel was begun in 1442 and the Knights' Hall is dated 1452. His son Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary from 1458, continued the work, which was completed around 1480, the year carved above the main gate. In the early seventeenth century Prince Gabriel Bethlen made major alterations, adding among other things the Great Palace and the White Tower. The castle has been owned by the Romanian state since 1918. A fire in 1854 destroyed much of the building. Restoration began in 1868 under Ferenc Schulcz and was continued by Imre Steindl until 1874 and by Ștefan Möller from 1907; these interventions were later criticised for the liberties they took with the original form. A new phase of research and restoration began in 1956, based on studies by the architect Oliver Velescu. Visitors can see the Knights' Hall, the Diet Hall with its painted medallions, the chapel on the east side, the Capistrano tower, the Neboisa tower, linked to the castle by a long gallery, and the courtyard well, about 28 m deep. A legend says the well was dug by three Turkish prisoners who had been promised their freedom, and the family emblem, a raven holding a ring in its beak, is also explained by a legend. The Corvin Castle Museum has operated here since 1974, and the complex is a class A historic monument, LMI code HD-II-m-A-03344.