Varaždin Castle was first mentioned in the 12th century and it is believed that at that time it was the seat of the Varaždin County. At the end of the 14th century it became the property of the Counts of Celje, who rebuilt it in Gothic style. The central quadrangular building, around which the wooden palisades were originally placed, dates from this period.
The fortress underwent a major restoration in the 16th century, when it was reconstructed into a modern Renaissance fortification. For the property of Ivan Ungnad, just before 1544, began the construction of walls with circular towers, and around them earthen ramparts and a moat filled with water. Thus became a characteristic type of fort called Wasserburg. The renovation was led by Domenico dell'Allio, a builder of Italian origin working in Styria. Towards the end of the century the Varaždin fortress finally passed into the hands of the Hungarian-Croatian family of Erdödy, who made minor Baroque adaptations to it.
Stari grad Varaždin History
The feudal fortress of Varaždin, called the Old Town since ancient times, is the most important historical building in Varaždin. It was the center of a noble estate, owned and legally separated from the royal and free city of Varaždin. Today's fortress was built from the 14th to the 19th century. The oldest part is the central tower. The benches and canopies on the ground floor are the most beautiful examples of Gothic secular sculpture in northern Croatia. During the wars with the Turks in the 16th century rebuilt in the Renaissance Wasserburg, a fortress - a castle surrounded by high embankments with ramparts, surrounded by a double water belt. The reconstruction was carried out in the second half of the 16th century by Italian builders from the vicinity of Como, led by the leading builder of imperial fortifications on the Slavic border, Domenico del Lallio. In the past it was owned by many important noble families, the Counts of Celje, Ivan Ungnad, Juraj Brandenburg and the Croatian Ban Tomo Erdödy and his successors. In 1925 it became the property of the city of Varaždin.
In honor of the millennium of the Croatian kingdom, in 1925 the Varaždin City Museum was opened in the Old Town. In its premises are located the collections of the oldest, the Department of Culture and History, and many of their collections are still displayed in elegant rooms. The most valuable are the collection of guild objects, furniture, historical portraits, weapons, paintings, clocks, porcelain and glass, which, along with many other objects of everyday life of the Varaždin nobility and wealthy citizens, visitors can still see in about 40 museum rooms . Particularly valuable are the collections with objects from the legacy of two famous Varazdin personalities, the politician and writer Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski and the linguist Vatroslav Jagić.