Trsat castle
Trsat Castle is one of the oldest fortifications on the Croatian coast. Located on the 138-meter high Trsat hill, it offers a stunning view of Rijeka and the opposite hills, Katarina and Kalvarija.
In prehistoric times, this location controlled the road from the interior to the sea. The site also served the Romans well during the period of consolidation of the Liburnian limes defense system, with Tarsatica, a fortified city, as its starting point, located on the site of today’s Old Town.
It is believed that the largest round tower was built by the Romans to defend the gorge above the Rječina river, hence it is called the Roman Tower. When the Croats settled in Kvarner, they used the tower on Trsat as a military fortress and adapted its name to their Chakavian dialect, from which the current name Trsat developed.
The Frankopan princes of Krk ruled Trsat until the end of the 15th century, when Prince Stjepan Frankopan bequeathed the Trsat lordship to his cousin, the Hungarian-Croatian king Matthias Corvinus, thus granting him access to the sea.
In the war with King Matthias in 1485, Frederick III of Habsburg conquered Trsat, making it a hereditary property of the Habsburg dynasty. Although Emperor Maximilian, disregarding the Treaty of Pressburg, forcefully took Trsat, the Frankopans never renounced their rights to it.
In the 16th century, the Habsburgs inherited the city of Rijeka from the Counts of Walsee as a family heirloom, and especially from that time, Trsat Castle depended on the emperor and his governors and tenants, mostly the imperial captains of Rijeka. The function of the imperial captains in Trsat was abolished when, in 1778, Empress Maria Theresa exempted Trsat from Habsburg household possessions and handed it over to the newly founded municipality of Kotor Bakar. From that time, Trsat Castle lost its strategic value; the threat from the Turks and Venice was no longer present, the lordship did not generate much income, the maintenance of the castle became expensive, and it was further damaged in the catastrophic earthquake of 1750. Since then, ivy began to grow on its towers, and travel writers referred to the building as “Ruins”.
Austrian Marshal Count Laval Nugent of Westmeath bought the ruins of Trsat Castle in 1826 and restored it with the intention of building a museum. Because Count Nugent showed great heroism in the fight against Napoleon in 1814, he placed the inscription “Hero’s Peace” on the architrave of his resting place. Later, the Nugents transported the bones of their ancestors from the United Kingdom and buried them in niches at the side of the mausoleum.
Between the two world wars, Trsat Castle fell into a state of catastrophic disrepair. The 90-year-old owner, the blind Countess Ana Nugent, could not maintain the monument, so in 1937, our respected conservator, Gjuro Szabo, requested that the law be changed and the necessary repairs be carried out, which did not happen, and the situation worsened due to the destruction in World War II.
In the second half of the 20th century, Trsat Castle became Rijeka’s fortress of culture and spirit.
Trsat Castle holds great significance for the history of conservation in Croatia, as it was the site of the first intervention in medieval monumental heritage.
Today, Trsat Castle is one of the most visited cultural and tourist attractions in Rijeka and the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County.