Slovakia received the first European Heritage Label: 12 treasures to which it owes this
Slovakia has a lot to celebrate. The European Commission, with the help of an independent expert jury, awarded the prestigious European Heritage Label to our country for the medieval sacral architecture depicted in 12 Gothic churches in the Gemer and Malohont region. Meet them with us.
Rimavská Baňa
The fortified Gothic church in Rimavská Bani was built in the 14th century. There are medieval murals with a legend from Ladislav from 1360 to 1380, and furniture is also rare – a Gothic baptistery and a Baroque altar and pulpit.
Source: TASR – Branislav Caban
The church was originally Catholic, during the Reformation it passed into the hands of Protestants. At that time, most of the paintings were painted, empires and coffered ceilings were added. The original building did not have a tower, today’s bell tower was added in the 18th century. The church underwent a significant change at the beginning of the 20th century, when it received a new Baroque roof and the turret above the entrance in the perimeter wall was dismantled.
Source: TASR – Branislav Caban
The Rimavskobanský church also attracted the attention of the Czech writer Alois Jirásek, who visited the village in 1897 to collect material for his trilogy from Hussite times under the name Brotherhood. He placed one of the scenes of the second book in the area of the fortified church, when the inhabitants of Rimavská Bana defended themselves against the attack of a unit of Ján Hunyadi’s army.
Source: TASR – Branislav Caban
Rimavské Brezovo
Originally an early Gothic church, it was probably built in the first half of the 14th century and before the Reformation of the consecrated Nativity of the Virgin Mary. The murals, probably from the workshop of the Master of the Ochtin Presbytery, have been preserved in the interior. The most striking feature is the figure of the Blessing Christ in a shining circle with the Sun and the Moon in the eastern part of the vault and the Marian Cycle in two strips around the perimeter of the entire presbytery.
Source: EASYFOTO TASR – Branislav Caban
In 1893, the church underwent the most reconstruction. The original sacristy on the north side was demolished, the entrance was bricked up and the nave was widened to the south. Thanks to this reconstruction, medieval wall paintings were found on the walls covered with panels.
Source: EASYFOTO TASR – Branislav Caban
The comprehensive renovation and research was carried out in successive stages from 2005 to 2019, a valuable discovery was also the original 700-year-old paving in the presbytery (photo above). The restoration of the presbytery was awarded the main prize of the Cultural Monument of the Year 2012 competition.
Source: EASYFOTO TASR – Branislav Caban
Kyjatice
The Romanesque-Gothic church in Kyjatice was built in the late 13th or early 14th century. It hides rare murals dating from two stages. Those in the presbytery and on the triumphal arch were created at the end of the 14th century, the frescoes on the north wall of the nave are from the first half of the 15th century. All were whitewashed after the adoption of the Reformation, and their discovery did not take place until the 1980s.
Source: SITA / Gothic Way
The rarity of the church is also a stone baptistery probably from the 13th century, a late Gothic portal, a renaissance wooden coffered ceiling and altar from the 17th century and a rich wooden carved baroque pulpit from the first third of the 18th century. In the area of the church there are the ruins of the building of the former school and rectory.
Source: TASR – Branislav Caban
Kraskovo
The church in Kraskov dates from the 14th century, it was built on the site of an older church from the 13th century. In the 15th century, it was fortified with a wall, in the area of which a wooden log bell tower was built in 1657.
Source: TASR Branislav Caban
In the interior, but also on the facade of the church, the murals from the 60s and 70s of the 14th century have been well preserved. They depict the Saint Ladislav legend and scenes from the Marian and Passion cycle. The presbytery is dominated by the Blessing Christ in the almond tree, in the exterior on the east wall of the presbytery there is a fresco of St. Christopher. Among the rarities of the church are the stone baptistery from the 13th century and the painted coffered ceiling from 1758.
Source: TASR Branislav Caban
Maid
You can also visit a small church with large treasures in the small village of Chyžné near Jelšava. At first glance, it is distinguished by a massive enclosure wall with roofed gates, which is closed by a church complex with a cemetery, a free-standing bell tower and a wooden building from the 18th century.
Source: SITA / Banská Bystrica Region Tourism
The church itself dates from the second half of the 13th century, a hundred years later wall paintings from the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints and church fathers were added to its perimeter walls and vault. In the interior you can also see a rare late Gothic winged altar from 1508 from the workshop of Master Paul of Levoča. The statues of the angel and Mary are attributed to the master himself.
Stones
The church was originally dedicated to the Hungarian King St. The Ladislavs were built on a slight hill in the middle of the village in the middle of the 13th century and it has a Romanesque basis. The fresco decoration on the emporium and presbytery dates from the first half of the 14th century and the 15th century.
Source: SITA / Banská Bystrica Region Tourism
Today’s appearance of the church of the great reconstruction in the 17th century, when the nave was vaulted and the south tower was introduced. In the 18th century, the window openings were modified in the spirit of Baroque and Classicism, but the early Gothic concession portal has been preserved to this day. The bell tower at the church dates from around 1800.
Rákoš
In the old mining village of Rákoš, at the foot of the Železník hill, stands the Church of the Holy Trinity, an early Gothic single-nave building from the middle of the 13th century, where medieval frescoes have been preserved on the outer wall. It still has a Romanesque horseshoe apse and slit Romanesque windows, but the entrance portal is already Gothic.
Source: SITA / Banská Bystrica Region Tourism
Murals dating from the last third of the 14th century after the second half of the 15th century and on all the walls and the vault of the presbytery and almost the entire north wall of the nave. the depiction of the Last Judgment is exceptional, Stigmatization of St. Francis and the image of a blessing God with three faces, who was later forbidden.
Source: SITA / VUB Foundation
Šivetice
The small village of Šivetice near Jelšava boasts the largest Romanesque rotunda in Central Europe. It has a diameter of 11 meters and it is interesting that in the second quarter of the 13th century it was built of bricks and not stone, as was the custom at the time.
Source: SITA / Banská Bystrica Region Tourism
The interior is covered with frescoes in several layers. Original Romanesque paintings with the theme of the life of St. The Margita of Antioch, to whom the rotunda is dedicated, later repainted in the Gothic style. An interesting detail is the exterior fresco on the Romanesque portal.
Ochtiná
Although Ochtiná became famous mainly near the aragonite cave, during her visit, the church of St. Nicholas. It was built in the Gothic style on the site of a ruined Romanesque building, probably in the early 14th century. Two centuries later, a northern side nave, vaulted with a star vault, was added to the church.
Source: SITA / VUB Foundation
In the interior there are beautiful frescoes depicting the Christological cycle, the author of which is the so-called Master of the Ochtin Presbytery. Originally, they probably covered a much larger area, but at the beginning of the 17th century they were whitewashed as a result of evangelization, so today you can only admire those in the presbytery.
Source: SITA / Banská Bystrica Region Tourism
Bald
Today’s Plešivec was the property of the Bubek family in the Middle Ages, who had a castle built there. It also included the church of St. Juraja, first mentioned in 1314. It was later expanded by one nave and in the interior and exterior supplemented with murals, which are among the best Gothic works in our country.
Source: EASYFOTO TASR – Branislav Caban
At the beginning of the 15th century, a late Gothic funeral chapel was added to the church. In 1558, the Plešivec church was burned down by the Turks, and in the following years the ruin was without a roof, so the Malar decoration was considerably damaged. The reconstruction did not take place until the beginning of the 17th century.
Shield
The Gothic church in Štítnik dates from the 13th century and has been preserved in a rare, undamaged and unbuilt form from the Middle Ages. It was originally a small church, but it was enlarged during the second third of the 14th century, creating a three-nave basilica with a net and star vault.
Source: SITA / Banská Bystrica Region Tourism
During this period, the original paintings were covered with new frescoes, including the most famous of them, the so-called Madonna of the Shield. However, in the middle of the 16th century, due to the evangelization of the church, they were whitewashed if they were not restored until four years later.
Source: EASYFOTO TASR – Branislav Caban
A rarity of the church is also a cast iron baptismal font from the middle of the 15th century, a Renaissance organ or 14 Renaissance and Baroque wooden epitaphs and mortuaries.
Source: EASYFOTO TASR – Branislav Caban
the author: © List / as
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