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THE ARISTOCRATIC BOROUGH OF GRIŽANE: THE STATE OF HISTORICAL-ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Krešimir Regan
Abstract
In the town Grižane near Crikvenica there are ruins of an aristocratic borough Grižane that is first mentioned in historical sources in 1288. Today’s ruins of the town were builed on the ruins of the late Ancient or Byzantium fortress dating back from the 4th to the 6th century which could have been used by the Croatians after they settled in their new homeland as a central Parish of Grižane or County District which was part of the Vinodol District. Later it became the centre of the Independent Landed Estate of the Grand-Dukes of Krk Frankopan (1209/1223-1479, 1481-1577) and Zrinski (1577-1671). After the collapse of the Zrinski-Frankopan Anti Habsburg Alliance the Grižane borough was in the possession of Adam Zrinski and the Hungarian Court Chamberlain (1671-1691) and subsequently the Austrian Court Chamberlain (1692-1749) and the Vienna Bank Deputation whose headquarters were in Ljubljana, who, during the 50’s 0f the 18th century, left it to fall into disrepair. The ruins of the Grižane borough are positioned above the settlement with the same name, on a steep slope of a rock cliff that leans on the Gorski kotar mountain massif only on the East side, while the other three sides of the steep cliffs separates it from the Vinodol Plains and the neighbouring slopes of the Gorski kotar mountain massif. The borough consists of two parts: the town centre which is elevated on its highest part in the North-East corner, and the fortified outskirts who’s defence walls close in the hole of the cliff slope of the Grižane borough, the North-East side, East side and South side. Although various researches of Croatian cultural heritage have dealt with the Grižane borough’s past it is our intention to attempt to deal with not only the historical and archaeological topography of the borough but to show it’s uniqueness in relation to other fortresses and other solutions of that time.
Keywords
Grižane; aristocratic borough; renaissance castle; Vinodol; Grand-Dukes of Krk; Frankopan; Zrinski
Hrčak ID:
332561
URI
Publication date:
22.11.2006.
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