A brief history
Over the centuries the Teleki family built numerous imposing castles, above all in the northern and eastern parts of Transylvania, in the Chioar region and in the Mureș valley. From the end of the 17th century Gornești became one of the family’s most important estate centres, and the castle here — nicknamed “the jewel of the Mureș” — is one of the most valuable examples of baroque architecture in Transylvania.
The Gornești estate came into the possession of the Teleki family in 1674, when Prince Michael Apafi I granted it to Mihály Teleki (II), his counsellor and one of the most influential noblemen of his time. A medieval fortress already stood on the estate, built in the second half of the 15th century by the vice-voivode István Erdélyi de Somkerék. Surrounded by a defensive moat and provided with two large corner bastions and three smaller towers, the fortress was remodelled by Mihály Teleki in 1686–1687. Of his building work only a few carved stone fragments in Renaissance style survived; these were kept in the castle museum until the Second World War.
Gornești was Mihály Teleki’s favourite residence, and it was from here that he set out for the Battle of Zărnești, where he lost his life in 1690. The estate was inherited by his youngest son, Sándor (I). Sándor Teleki’s first marriage, to Júlia Bethlen, produced three sons and a daughter; his second, to Zsuzsanna Petky, two sons. The youngest of these was Sámuel (II), born in 1739 — founder of the first public library in Transylvania and future owner of the castle at Dumbrăvioara. After Sándor Teleki’s death in 1754, the Gornești estate passed to his son from his first marriage, László (II), councillor of the Gubernium, whose name is associated with the beginnings of the present castle. The first stage of these large-scale works was interrupted by the count’s death in 1778, but by then the building had already been raised in accordance with its present plan, with its projecting central pavilion.
The castle was inherited by the count’s only son to reach adulthood, József (IV), lord lieutenant of Ugocea County and custodian of the crown (conservator coronae). He was one of the prominent figures of intellectual life in 18th-century Transylvania, with a deep interest in the arts, archaeology and architecture. Together with his uncle Sámuel Teleki (II), the future owner of the castle at Dumbrăvioara, he visited celebrated Western European universities, and during his travels in Italy he devoted himself to the study of historic monuments. In this period the works at Gornești advanced slowly, as the count held high offices that tied him to Ugocea County and to Vienna. It was nevertheless then that the castle’s outbuildings and the French garden — laid out according to strict geometric rules — were created.
The castle acquired its final form at the beginning of the 19th century, under József (VI). Like his father, the young count undertook study journeys across Europe; in England he was particularly struck by the parks laid out in the romantic spirit. On his return he transformed the French garden at Gornești into an English landscape park, and on the site of the former medieval moat he created a lake with an island. After his death in 1817 his wife, Zsófia Teleki de Szék, erected a commemorative monument in the park, on whose plinth the virtues of the family are inscribed in Latin.
Throughout the 19th century the Gornești estate passed from father to son, held in turn by Domokos (III), Géza (II) and then Domokos (VI). Count Domokos Teleki (VI) was known as a remarkable art collector: he arranged a veritable museum within his castle and established a model farm at Gornești. In 1935 he and his wife, Edina Teleki, moved to Budapest, leaving the management of the estate and the model farm to their son, Mihály (XII).
The period after nationalisation
The castle’s tragedy began in the autumn of 1944, when German and then Russian soldiers devastated and looted it. The master of the castle — Mihály Teleki, known as “nea Micu” — and his family were able to return from Hungary to Transylvania in 1945, but they found their Gornești residence empty: the furniture and the collections of museum value had been scattered, the agricultural machinery had vanished and the livestock had been dispersed. The library of three thousand volumes and the family archive were largely destroyed, found strewn about the ground-floor halls, soaked and marked with shoe prints. The books that could be saved were deposited by Mihály Teleki at the Teleki Library in Târgu Mureș, while part of the archival material entered the collection of the Transylvanian Museum Society and later the State Archives in Cluj.
Despite this undignified state of ruin, the family began once again to manage the estate, though from 1947 their residence was in Târgu Mureș. After nationalisation, Mihály Teleki met the same fate as other great Transylvanian landowners: he was dispossessed of his property, forced to move with his family to Târgu Mureș, and subsequently deported to a labour camp.
During the communist period the castle served as a tuberculosis preventorium. Mihály Teleki’s youngest son, Kálmán Teleki, succeeded in recovering the castle and its park in 2006 after a long lawsuit, but the medical institution was only vacated in 2011. Of the former furnishings, only a few tiled stoves, three Murano glass chandeliers, the painted ceiling of the great dining hall on the upper floor and the original parquet have survived. In recent years the castle has re-entered Transylvania’s tourist circuit, periodically hosting artists’ camps, festivals, conferences and other cultural events. At present the monument is closed to the general public owing to a restoration begun in 2023 and expected to be completed in 2026.
Art-historical aspects
The first major stage of the castle’s construction is linked to the name of László Teleki (II). In 1732 the count married Eszter, daughter of Count Pál Ráday, formerly chancellor of Transylvania under Prince Francis Rákóczi II. The wedding took place on Pál Ráday’s estate at Pécel, and the young couple subsequently settled on the Teleki estate at Țelna. After Pál Ráday’s death, the Pécel estate passed to his son, Gedeon Ráday, who commissioned its baroque remodelling — most probably with the help of the Salzburg architect Andreas Mayerhoffer, known for designing the Grassalkovich castle at Gödöllő. Influenced by his brother-in-law’s building works at Pécel, László Teleki ordered the demolition of the ruined old fortress at Gornești and the construction of an elegant baroque residence, inspired — following the model attested in the Ráday family — by the castles of Gödöllő and the Pest region. The works were carried out under the master mason Pál Schmidt of Târgu Mureș and, after his death, under János Topler and Konstantin Schmidt. Although the building’s designer remains unknown, some hypotheses point to Andreas Mayerhoffer or to his son, Johannes Mayerhoffer.
The Teleki castle at Gornești shows many similarities with the baroque castles around Pest, yet its architecture is simpler and more provincial, reflecting Transylvanian building traditions and the style of local craftsmen: part of the baroque ornamentation was dispensed with, the windows were narrowed, the central pavilion was raised in height, and a balcony was added above the main gate. The major works also spanned two generations of the Teleki family, so it is possible that the second patron, József Teleki (IV), returning from his travels across Europe, considered the original baroque plans outdated beside the classicist architecture then in vogue.
The castle is entered by a stone bridge crossing the lake. The building, comprising a ground floor and an upper storey, has a U-shaped plan with a dominant central block — the main pavilion — divided into five bays by double pilasters with Ionic capitals. The ground-floor windows have straight lintels; those on the upper floor are tall with semicircular heads, surmounted by small oval “bull’s-eye” windows. The wide portal is crowned by a balustraded balcony resting on stone corbels. The central pavilion is accentuated by a dome-shaped roof, at whose apex rises a small clock tower. The plain side wings are articulated by rectangular windows, and the courtyard façade presents a series of semicircular arcades at ground level. A corner pavilion with a mansard roof rises at the end of each wing.
Several high-quality baroque statues survive in the castle park, brought to Gornești in 1906 from the Budapest villa of Domokos Teleki (VI). The paths of the former English park were adorned with statues of deities from ancient mythology: Juno, Neptune, Pan, Venus, Bacchus and Ceres. Around the lake stood smaller statues with grotesque features, caricaturing figures from the era of the French Revolution: King Louis XVI, Honoré de Mirabeau, and two female figures, the “Dames des halles” (the market women of Paris). The sandstone statues still stand today in the garden surrounding the castle, though their condition has deteriorated considerably over time, some surviving only in fragments.
Curiosities
Count Domokos Teleki (VI) was known as a passionate art collector. Along the long corridor of the castle’s west wing he arranged a veritable museum of objects of local archaeological and historical value. Here were kept, among other things, the travelling chest of Mihály Teleki, founder of the estate, together with the family’s rich collection of goldsmith’s work and weapons, sculptures, embroideries and folk ceramics, and decorative wrought-iron pieces. The most valuable items of this “corridor-museum” were the Turkish carpets dating from the era of the principality, which the owner transported to Hungary before the outbreak of the Second World War and deposited at the Hungarian National Museum. Although the artworks survived the war, most were destroyed in the fire that broke out during the 1956 revolution. The count’s interest in archaeology is attested by the fact that, together with his son Mihály, he frequently investigated the stone remains of the Roman camp that once stood on the site of the present-day village of Cristești. The museum was thus also enriched with fragments of ancient sculpture, part of a bas-relief depicting Romulus and Remus, and a milestone (milliarium) from the old Roman road.
Bibliography
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Sursa: https://castleintransylvania.ro/castle/teleki-gernyeszeg-gornesti/?lang=en
