Fortified Church Agnita, Transilvania

Fortified Church Agnita - details and images

The point of maximum attraction is the fortress city Agnita peasant fortified church housed therein. Confirm the existence of royal privileges Agnita city in 1466, it was probably built with the church - the Gothic hall, built on the foundations of a Roman basilica, without the tower of the thirteenth century, fortified in the first quarter of the XVI century. In a document preserved in the church until 1948, it was shown that of 1409 as the current building.

The fortress consists of a triple-chamber, was built in several stages, as was later changed at different intervals. The four defense towers built of river rock and quarry belonged interior curtains. In the center of the northern side of the tower carpenters, with an entrance arch provided with hers, looking over the gate. In the east tower rises in the southeast tower blacksmith tailors and shoemakers in the southwest tower. Among the latter there are old wooden shed.

Towers owe their names to the fact that their defense was the duty of care and the various guilds, which kept their bacon in their tower and hanging from wooden beams of the platforms. Towers with five tiers are all provided with small buttresses, passable only for firearms, being vaulted niches with arches covered stone slabs placed vertically stacked or marginal.

Curtin included inside an oval courtyard with a diameter of 55-65 m - if we take the inner corners of the towers as reference points - the second defense wall connecting the outer corners of the towers. Between these two curtains are "Zwinger's" yard animals housed there in case of danger, and the third Curtin, irregular polygonal shape, included a moat, the outer defense wall was protected by the brook and wetlands near . In 1845, the third was demolished Curtin, in 1867 the stores were demolished chambers surrounding the inner chamber, so that in 1870 the last vestiges of fall and curtains triple cord, leaving the towers completely isolated from material obtained by demolishing the building new school.

The core of the city it was a Gothic hall church. Her choir elongated, closed on three sides east and central nave with semicircular arches radial bearing, once decorated with terracotta fins arranged stellate shaped, painted red, as proven by the traces on the southwest corner. Above the small arches in the northern cross of collateral amounted to a stand, while collateral south central nave reaches a height, covered with cross vaults, arches separate dublou broken arch.

On the northern side were originally preserved by square pillars, but adosându them the columns supporting the vault of the central nave. Romanesque arches, these pillars to open between north collateral, have been raised and closed in spring broke, keep a cornice placed below the point before the birth of a Roman arch, thus representing a trace of the Romanesque basilica. Western side as Portals portal located on the same axle, the narrow entrance of the priest in the southern wall of the choir, and all windows are finished in the spring broke, their profiles with a rustic character and cumbersome. The proportions are not too happy church resolved that implementation can be attributed to local craftsmen and some not qualified in any of the major urban sites. Only the south wall of the tabernacle of the present forms of late Gothic choir, more graceful, revealing a definite Oriental influence in the design details.

A bell tower 44 meters high, with six storeys and a railing of the gallery was placed in front paiantă western side, free on three sides, so that its ground floor, opening three large arches broken arch, forming a portico in front of the church main entrance. With the consolidation begun in 1500, the tower was surrounded by a coat of stone, rising to the height of the second neck, consciously shaped roof console. Called Tower potters, this body of defense was provided with battlements, divided into two storeys by a platform of planks, higher sin is accessible through a narrow staircase that ascends the north wing. A corridor crossing the western side of the bell tower in link with the north wing of the south tower. This portico was closed to the bell tower, whose upper storeys were also furnished with battlements, paiantă gallery using the base defense tower, wearing a pyramid roof with tiles.

Strengthen this powerful western side corresponds to the east, high above the choir bastion, with beat guard, flat arches resting on buttresses around the choir joining. In the shadow of these arches are wide opened holes for pouring hot liquids. The devastation of the village in 1600 by mercenary troops, the church was burned and renovated in 1614. In 1890, they renewed the southern parts of the collateral vault. In 1892, the bastion above the choir, became unstable, was demolished, and in 1908, the church received a new roof.

Over the centuries, both Cetaţiii walls and towers and church itself was refortificate, recămăşuite and raised to meet evolving technique for fighting the besiegers. Today the figure rises with its towers above City rooftops of the city, as evidence of ancient existence.

Information source