Martinuzzi Castle

Martinuzzi Castle, also called Alvinc Castle, stands in Vințu de Jos, a locality in the Transylvania region of Romania. This medieval fortress ranks among the earliest and most significant examples of Italian Renaissance architecture in Transylvania. The ruins are listed as a national heritage site, bearing the code AB-II-m-B-00394 on Romania’s National Register of Historic Monuments.

Its history includes several violent episodes. On the night of 16–17 December 1551, George Martinuzzi was killed inside the castle by General Giovanni Battista Castaldo. Aaron the Tyrant was imprisoned there on 9 May 1595 and later poisoned. Italian architects Simone Genga (died 1596) and Fulvio Genga (died 1597) were involved in the castle’s construction, but contrary to some claims, there is no credible evidence they were assassinated by General Basta at Martinuzzi Castle.

Metropolitan Sava Brancović was imprisoned by Michael I Apafi in 1683, though not at Martinuzzi Castle. While the region saw Ottoman and Tatar incursions between 1658 and 1661, specific documented damage to the castle itself from these attacks is not clearly established in widely accepted historical sources. In 1715, the castle came under the ownership of Transylvania’s Roman Catholic Church, serving as a summer residence for bishops. A fire broke out in 1792 while Ignác Batthyány occupied the property, and repairs followed.

During Romania’s communist era, the castle decayed further, used for industrial storage, as a granary, and as a meat processing plant. Its northern sections collapsed in 1981. After the Romanian Revolution, the site was abandoned, and the ruins now face imminent collapse.

Local oral tradition claims that Castaldo killed Martinuzzi to retrieve a hidden stash of ancient coins, which the cardinal was rumored to have obtained from fishermen and concealed within the castle. However, no credible tradition links the assassination to such a stash; the killing was politically motivated.