Visegrád Castle, Vyšehrad

Visegrád (Slovak: Vyšehrad) is a castle town in Pest County, Hungary. It is north of Budapest on the right bank of the Danube in the Danube Bend. It had a population of 1,864 in 2010. The town is the site of the remains of the Early Renaissance summer palace of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and a medieval citadel.

The name Visegrád (Vyšehrad) is of Slavic origin, meaning acropolis, literally "the upper castle" (the castle with a privileged position) or "the upper settlement". In modern Slovak and Czech, the form is Vyšehrad.

The castle of Visegrád is called Fellegvár (Citadel) in Hungarian,In German, the town is called Plintenburg. The German name Plintenburg or Blendenburg is said to come from the beautiful view that one has from the castle and is "blinded"/"dazzled" by this view.
History

Visegrád was first mentioned in 1009 as a county town and the chief town of an archdeaconry. After the destructive Mongol invasion of Europe in 1242, the town was rebuilt in a slightly different location to the south. King Charles I of Hungary made Visegrád the royal seat of Hungary in 1325. At the same time, his diplomat Stephen Sáfár was appointed castellan.

In 1335, Charles hosted at Visegrád a two-month congress with the Bohemian king, John of Luxembourg, and the Polish king, Casimir III. It was crucial in creating a peace between the three kingdoms and securing an alliance between Poland and Hungary against Habsburg Austria. Another congress followed in 1339.

Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary and Croatia in personal union with Hungary, moved the royal seat to Buda between 1405 and 1408. King Matthias Corvinus (1443–1490), King of Hungary, used Visegrád as a country residence.

Visegrád lost importance after the partition of the Kingdom of Hungary following the Battle of Mohács in 1526. It was captured by the Ottomans under Suleiman the Magnificent in 1529. In 1532, King Zápolya besieged Visegrád and took it. In 1540, after the death of Zápolya, Habsburg general Leonhard Fels took the city, as well as Vác, Pest, Tata and Székesfehérvár. Because the city threatened the lines of communication between Buda and Esztergom, Yahyapaşaoğlu Mehmed Paşa of Buda took it in 1544 (possibly April 23, before May 10).

In February 1991, the leading politicians of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland met here to form a periodical forum, the Visegrád Group, with an intentional allusion to the meeting centuries earlier in 1335.

Visegrád was granted town privileges again in 2000.