Jablje Castle (), also known as Jable Castle (), Habah Castle (), or Habach Castle (, ), is a castle above the settlement of Loka pri Mengšu,

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

. It is located on the western edge of the

Mengeš Plain Mengeš (; ''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 28.) is a town in the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipalit ...

History

The original castle at Jablje was first mentioned in 1268, while the current structure was built by the noble house of Lamberg around 1530. The castle subsequently passed through the hands of the Rasp family, the barons Mosconi, and was from 1780 until the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

owned by the barons Lichtenberg. Though it survived the war largely intact, the castle was

nationalized Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

and thoroughly looted during the following years, being first converted into apartments and then serving as an experimental facility of the Biotechnical Faculty of the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and re ...

. After a thorough renovation carried out between 1999 and 2006, the castle was a major protocolary site during the 2008 Slovene presidency of the EU. Today it hosts the so-called Center for European Perspective (''Center za evropsko prihodnost'' or CEP; literally, 'Center for a European Future') and is listed as a cultural monument. Its greatest asset is a set of frescoes by the baroque painter

Franc Jelovšek The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th century, ...

, including an unusual depiction of a camel-riding Chinese

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, thoug ...

player. The castle is open for visitors every other Saturday at 11:00, with appointments available for groups.

Name

The castle was first attested in German as ''Hagbach'' and ''Hagwach'' (both in the 1320s), and then as ''Hawach'' (in 1348) and ''Habach'' (in 1435). The German name refers to a creek overgrown with bushes. The Slovene name was cited by

Johann Weikhard von Valvasor Johann Weikhard Freiherr von Valvasor or Johann Weichard Freiherr von Valvasor (, ) or simply Valvasor (baptised on 28 May 1641 – September or October 1693) was a natural historian and polymath from Carniola, present-day Slovenia, and a Li ...

in the 17th century as ''Ablah''. Older theories explain the Slovene name ''Jablje'' as derived from German ''Habach'' (deriving this from the common noun ''Habicht'' '

northern goshawk The northern goshawk has been split into two species based on significant morphological and genetic differences: * Eurasian goshawk The Eurasian goshawk (; ''Astur gentilis'', formerly ''Accipiter gentilis'') is a species of medium-large bird of ...

' (''Accipiter gentilis''), a species said to be common in the area). More recent explanations reject this, stating that the name arose independently in Slovene, originally as ''Jable'' (and then through

hypercorrection In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is the nonstandard use of language that results from the overapplication of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a ...

to ''Jablje'') based on the root ''jabel'' 'apple tree'.

References

External links

*
Jablje Castle on GeopediaJablje Castle site
{{Castles in Slovenia Castles in Upper Carniola Cultural monuments of Slovenia

History

Name

See also

References

External links