Read Online They Were Counted by Miklós Bánffy - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Miklós Bánffy
Tags: Fiction, Cultural Heritage
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road and the village where the peasants lived, seems to have chosen the site as a strategic point between the counties of Maros and Torda, where he could best protect his lands and serfs from marauding bands of Szekler huns.
Even in those early days Var-Siklod can never have inspired the same awe as those great frowning fortresses of stone that we know from drawings in medieval French and German monastic manuscripts. The four square walls, following the lines of the Roman camp, were joined at each corner by stout little towers. Over the entrance gates was another small castellated tower and in the centre of the wide courtyard stood the keep, where the lord and his family lived, and which, in those days was merely a two-storey building standing by itself, with massive walls and tiny windows set in deep stone embrasures. Useless against cannon and sophisticated siege machinery, the little fort had been all that was needed to hold the land against the fierce raids of Tartars, armed only with their courage and primitive weapons, and, later, against the bands of brigands and free Szeklers. If the raiding party was large, and enough warning had been given, the livestock for miles around could be herded into the great courtyard around the keep.
Var-Siklod had not changed until the middle of the eighteenth century when the then head of the Laczok family, Count Adam – Vice-Chancellor of Transylvania and Governor of the province – decided that he must have a residence more worthy of his great position. It was just when the massive elegance of baroque was being transformed in Vienna, Munich and Brandenburg, into the fantasies of rococo; and it was this last that appealed to the taste of Count Adam.
First he removed the battlements from the fortified keep and replaced them with a soaring roof of shingle, made in three sections like a pagoda, the first ascending steeple, and the second and third mounting in an elaborate S-bend to form a mushroom-shaped roof that was taller even than the building beneath. He did not enlarge the windows but surrounded them with carved stone cornices decorated with garlands of flowers and fruit. Stone pilasters with elaborate capitals were grafted on to each corner of the building and, over the main entrance, he built out a new doorway, surmounted by vaulting, which in turn supported a balcony whose parapet of carved stone reflected the wildest and most fantastic intricacies of rococo taste. Above the balcony, supported on thin iron poles, was another roof made of copper, separate from that of the main house but also mushroom-shaped in two elaborate and unexpected curves. As the supporting poles were barely visible it seemed as if the heavy shining roof hung in the air unsupported from below. In Count Adam’s time rich curtains had been hung between the iron poles, thus giving him the appearance he wanted, the fashionable Chinese style that had inspired the Pagodenburg at Munich. That this was the effect intended was clear from the upturned edges of the different sections of the roof above, and from the oriental detail of the drainpipes which, in times of rain, shot spouts of water in arcs of ten metres out of their dragon-shaped mouths.
The eastern fancies of Count Adam, however, did not long remain unchallenged. As the nineteenth century brought added riches to the family so the Laczok of those later days, inspired by the same building mania as his predecessor, decided to enlarge and as he thought, improve the castle. As a modern and up- to-date magnate, his contribution was in the then fashionable Empire style that had come in at the end of the eighteenth century and spread throughout Europe at the time of Napoleon. The wide courtyard behind the house was quickly transformed into new kitchens and stable-yards. Then, leaving the entire rococo mansion untouched, two classical wings were added and embellished with a wide colonnade, which reached out each side of the house to the old outer walls.
Even in those early days Var-Siklod can never have inspired the same awe as those great frowning fortresses of stone that we know from drawings in medieval French and German monastic manuscripts. The four square walls, following the lines of the Roman camp, were joined at each corner by stout little towers. Over the entrance gates was another small castellated tower and in the centre of the wide courtyard stood the keep, where the lord and his family lived, and which, in those days was merely a two-storey building standing by itself, with massive walls and tiny windows set in deep stone embrasures. Useless against cannon and sophisticated siege machinery, the little fort had been all that was needed to hold the land against the fierce raids of Tartars, armed only with their courage and primitive weapons, and, later, against the bands of brigands and free Szeklers. If the raiding party was large, and enough warning had been given, the livestock for miles around could be herded into the great courtyard around the keep.
Var-Siklod had not changed until the middle of the eighteenth century when the then head of the Laczok family, Count Adam – Vice-Chancellor of Transylvania and Governor of the province – decided that he must have a residence more worthy of his great position. It was just when the massive elegance of baroque was being transformed in Vienna, Munich and Brandenburg, into the fantasies of rococo; and it was this last that appealed to the taste of Count Adam.
First he removed the battlements from the fortified keep and replaced them with a soaring roof of shingle, made in three sections like a pagoda, the first ascending steeple, and the second and third mounting in an elaborate S-bend to form a mushroom-shaped roof that was taller even than the building beneath. He did not enlarge the windows but surrounded them with carved stone cornices decorated with garlands of flowers and fruit. Stone pilasters with elaborate capitals were grafted on to each corner of the building and, over the main entrance, he built out a new doorway, surmounted by vaulting, which in turn supported a balcony whose parapet of carved stone reflected the wildest and most fantastic intricacies of rococo taste. Above the balcony, supported on thin iron poles, was another roof made of copper, separate from that of the main house but also mushroom-shaped in two elaborate and unexpected curves. As the supporting poles were barely visible it seemed as if the heavy shining roof hung in the air unsupported from below. In Count Adam’s time rich curtains had been hung between the iron poles, thus giving him the appearance he wanted, the fashionable Chinese style that had inspired the Pagodenburg at Munich. That this was the effect intended was clear from the upturned edges of the different sections of the roof above, and from the oriental detail of the drainpipes which, in times of rain, shot spouts of water in arcs of ten metres out of their dragon-shaped mouths.
The eastern fancies of Count Adam, however, did not long remain unchallenged. As the nineteenth century brought added riches to the family so the Laczok of those later days, inspired by the same building mania as his predecessor, decided to enlarge and as he thought, improve the castle. As a modern and up- to-date magnate, his contribution was in the then fashionable Empire style that had come in at the end of the eighteenth century and spread throughout Europe at the time of Napoleon. The wide courtyard behind the house was quickly transformed into new kitchens and stable-yards. Then, leaving the entire rococo mansion untouched, two classical wings were added and embellished with a wide colonnade, which reached out each side of the house to the old outer walls.
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