Built between 1771 and 1778, the Teleki Castle of Gorneşti is one of the most representative achievements of Transylvanian Baroque, set in a Baroque-style park adorned with statuettes of mythological figures. It was built in a U shape, with a more prominent central wing housing the portal and the ceremonial staircase on the ground floor. The ancestor of today’s castle, the fortified medieval castle referred to in a 1477 document as “Castellani castelli Gorneşti”, was built on the orders of István Erdély between 1462 and 1465. King Matthias Corvinus designated the building a castle in a royal document of 1478. István Erdély’s castle was acquired in 1685 by Chancellor Count Mihály Teleki. Between 1772 and 1782, József Teleki and his son, Count László Teleki, demolished the castle and rebuilt it in the form preserved to this day.
The Teleki name is a prominent one in the history of both Transylvania and Hungary, as this aristocratic family was actively involved over the centuries in political and administrative affairs as well as in cultural life. In 1685, Mihály Teleki (1634–1690) became a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, receiving the title from Emperor Leopold I.
Between 1686 and 1687, Teleki made several modifications to his castle at Gorneşti, including the raising of a new wing and the heightening and decoration of the towers with stone carved in the Transylvanian Renaissance style. In his memoirs he also mentions his flower and vegetable gardens. Mihály Teleki died in 1690 at the Battle of Zărneşti, and the history of the Gorneşti estate passed to the next generation, represented by the family of his youngest son, Count Sándor Teleki.
József Teleki continued the works begun by his father, László, son of Sándor, on the Gorneşti estate. Alongside the work on the palace building, between 1789 and 1792 the count laid out a French garden in the space between the old defensive ditch and the palace — one very different from the Baroque gardens of the period in Western Hungary, with flower parterres inspired by the artistic motifs of Hungarian ethnography. In 1790 the greenhouse, or “Great Flower House”, was also built. When József Teleki died in 1796 at his castle in Szirák, the works begun at the Gorneşti residence were complete: the Baroque palace stood in its entirety, surrounded by a beautiful French garden.
The best-known member of the family, however, is Count Sámuel Teleki (1739–1822), Chancellor of Transylvania in Vienna from 1769 and founder of the Teleki Library in Târgu-Mureş. Count Sámuel Teleki is buried in the courtyard of the family’s second castle — the Teleki Castle of Dumbrăvioara.
Called “the most beautiful castle in Transylvania” and “the treasure of the Mureş”, the Teleki Castle of Gorneşti lies 17 km from Târgu-Mureş and was built in the so-called Grassalkovich style, widespread in Budapest. Designed by the architect Andreas Mayerhoffer of Salzburg and resembling the palaces he created at Gödöllő and Pécel, the Teleki Castle stands in the immediate vicinity of the river Mureş, within an impressive dendrological park. In the castle grounds, the chestnuts, ash trees, acacias, oaks and walnut trees vie in age with the allegorical statues and the busts of the Marquis de Mirabeau and King Louis XVI.
At the end of the Second World War the building was looted and the library destroyed (some of the books were saved and are preserved in the Teleki Library in Târgu-Mureş and at the Arad Museum). In 1949 the ensemble was nationalised and in 1956, following a tuberculosis epidemic, it was converted into a TB preventorium for children. Between 1961 and 1962 the building was renovated to serve its new function.
The ensemble was restituted in 2006 and effectively came into the possession of the Teleki family’s descendants in 2011. They now wish to restore the palace and the park and to bring them into the tourist circuit. Once a year, a team of young volunteers (among them historians and landscape architects) organises “Castle Day”, offering thematic exhibitions and free guided tours in Romanian and Hungarian. Two such events have taken place so far, in November 2011 and July 2012.
Source: https://historia.ro/sectiune/travel/castelul-teleki-din-gornesti-o-alta-comoara-580716.html
