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Panoramas / Castles and mansions

Daniel Castle

Vârghiș

The Daniel-castle, as well as the park surrounding it, is one of the most well-known monuments in Erdővidék. The details of the building-complex strung along the longitudinal east-west axis are witnessing the sequences of several rebuilding’s and restorations. The chronology of the building process can also be described from east to west. Its earliest wing, namely the flat ceiling room of the main building and the intersecting-barrel-vaulted one, has allegedly been built in the late 16th century. In the mid-17th century, Ferenc Daniel expanded the building with several rooms with a westward view. Also, it is very likely that he was the one building the protection gallery on the northern facade, which has since been included into the overall volume of the building.

The castle became famous mostly for its many late renaissance stone carvings that adorn its southern facade, but none of them – except for the pillars of the loggia – is in its initial spot. In 1687, one of the most spectacular structural elements of the castle, the southern arcaded portico, was erected thanks to István Daniel. At the corners of the main building, the three baroque avant-corps with curved gables, framing from both, the right- and the left-hand-side the cross-vaulted arches of the loggia arcade were also built by István Daniel, who was known to have been the famous chief royal judge of Udvarhelyszék in 1723. The main entry, just as it can still be seen today, must have been built during the aforementioned reparations, too, because its frame bears fragments of similar late renaissance stone carvings.

Elek Daniel started a somewhat more comprehensive construction in 1797, resulting in the levelled wing of the palace, as well as the penthouse roof on the main building. Inserted between the windows with segmental arches, the huge double coat-of-arms made of sandstone bears the inscription „1745”. The embellished carving was probably ordered to mark the election of István Daniel as chief royal judge of Scaunul Odorheiului/ Udvarhelyszék, and it represented the coat-of-arms of the castle owner, and also that of his wife, Perki Polyxena.

Gábor Daniel erected the two-levelled circular bastion attached to the south-western corner of the palace wing between 1850 and 1853. During the same period, a neoclassical wing was added to the northern face of the main building.

The castle was amended with several new elements throughout the 20th century. Somewhere around 1920, Ferenc Daniel attached a round bastion to the north-eastern corner of the neoclassical wing, and in 1937 he had the last extension works concluded. The westward open loggia, with the little belfry in its corner, was also built in that very period. Such as the northern, two-levelled stone loggia, recalling a somewhat renaissance atmosphere, which was duly accomplished under the guidance of the art historian József Keöpeczi Sebestyén.

The present-day owner of the building is the local self-government of Esztergom, Hungary.




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