One of the most beautiful Baroque manor houses in the Prešov region with its four towers is a dominant feature of the picturesque town under the Slanské Hills - Hanušovce nad Topľou.
At the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries the Dessewffy family became the new owners of Hanušovce. The imposing manor house in the Renaissance-Baroque style was built by the brothers Jozef and Tomáš Dessewffy, who were in the service of Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary (1740 - 1780). The Latin text on the marble plaque in the interior of the manor tells about it.
The owners of the manor - the Dessewffy family - came from Cernek, in the Požega region of western Slavonia (eastern Croatia). At the beginning of the 16th century, during the Turkish invasions, the Dessewffy estate also fell into the hands of the Turks. Jan Dessewffy therefore fled to Bratislava with several documents from the family archives. After the Battle of Mohács (1526), the struggle for the Hungarian throne between Jan Zápoľský and Ferdinand Habsburg began. The Dessewffy family had always been loyal to the king, and this tradition was followed by the aforementioned John, who, although not a soldier, put himself at the political service of King Ferdinand. He was a royal chamberlain, confidant, member of the Order of the Knights of Rhodes, counsellor and then president of the Hungarian Chamber and administrator of the royal court in Bratislava. For his loyalty, the king rewarded John Dessewffy properly - he gave him the estates belonging to Kamenica Castle (Kamenica nad Torysou). From this Kamenica branch of the Dessewffy family came also the owners of the Great Manor of Hanušov.
The two-storey block building with rich stucco decoration of windows was hidden in the greenery of the park, fragments of which have also been preserved until now. The layout of the rooms inside the mansion shows the application of the Baroque principle of axiality. The rooms are vaulted with lunette vaults. The vaulted bays have rich stucco decoration. In the exterior, the silhouette of the building is determined by the interplay of the mansard roof and the bell-shaped roofs of the towers, which rhythmise the architecture. The stucco decoration of the windows is also rich. The main entrance portal has side pilasters with a supraport, which originally housed an inscription panel (now in the museum) and a shield with a stone coat of arms The Dessewffys.
Part of the manor grounds was also a large park, which was created at the end of the 19th century by rebuilding the original ornamental garden from the mid-18th century with a regular layout, the most valuable arrangement of which was on the terraces in front of the south-eastern facade of the manor. The terrace layout was based on the natural configuration of the terrain and the garden architecture on Baroque morphology. It was preserved in this form until the mid-19th century, when the regular garden was rebuilt into a nature and landscape park, whose original vegetation structure is still partly preserved today.
The building of the Great Manor House is currently the seat of the Museum of Homeland History Hanušovce nad Topľou, which is responsible for the documentation of history and nature in the district of Vranov nad Topľou.
Manor House Hanušovce nad Topľou - The Great Manor House is a part of Šariš castle roads
Source/Photo: Town of Hanušovce nad Topľou
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