During the 2020 season, we continued working on the archeology exploration, and monastery conservation started the previous year. Despite the pandemic, work progressed at a good pace.
Archeological research was carried out in three excavation sites. We uncovered the cloister garth’s SE and SW corner and continued exposing the monastery garden’s fencing wall.
We mostly worked on the conservation of the SE corner of the monastery. We mortar pointed the masonry, reattached the original, partially detached plasters, masoned the top part of the walls, and then laid a grass layer on them. We added three window niches for the wall stability and continued with the original static system’s reconstruction. We inserted hand-hewn oak beams into the places where they originally were in the perimeter walls. We contracted the cloister wings with iron rods, which used to reduce strain on the walls under the vaults’ load.
We have made a presentation of the tomb shaft situated on the floor in the crypt. For the safety of our visitors, we’ve also added a railing around the crypt’s entrance.
The railing around the crypt's entrance
Presentation of the tomb shaft situated on the floor in the crypt
Insertion of the iron rods into their original places, subsequently masoned in
The making of the iron rods
The grass laid on top of the walls and rebuilt window niches
The process of rebuilding the window niche
East part of the monastery garden's fencing wall
The staircase between two floors of the monastery, original brick flooring
Stone parts of the window frames of the upper floors
Entrance stone staircase leading from the garth into the monastery
In the working season 2020, we plan to focus mainly on the monastery.
Four archaeologic test pits will be made in the monastery. Two of them will focus on uncovering of the monastery garden enclosure wall and they follow the wall restoration works from previous years. Archaeologic research will be followed by conservation and masonry work. The other two test pits will research the corners of the big quad on the monastery side and the entrance from monastery to the quad.
We will continue with the conservation and reconstruction of the southeast part of the standing monastery wing with the aim to conserve and statically stabilize the ruin. We will restore the fallen window arch and insert the hand-carved oak beams into the walls to extend and restore the original wooden-metallic stabilizing wall system.
In the church nave, we plan to place the crypt entrance cover and add a safety railing around it. Afterwards, the “big crypt” can be made accessible to tourists.
The Open Doors Day event on 5.7.2020 will not take place
The tower will be open in July and August, but in connection with the coronavirus in limited mode (more information in the Tower section); land tourist escorts will also take place in a restricted mode
Summer parties will take place, but the number of participants is already full (you can only register as a substitute)
Original text:
We fully respect all quarantine measures regarding the occurrence of a new coronavirus.
For this reason, the tower will be closed until further notice and no public events or tourist accompanying will take place in the church and monastery grounds until further notice.
As the health and safety is important for us, we strongly urge you to limit visits at this time, so that groups of tourists do not gather around and thus increase the risk of infection.
We will be happy to welcome you at Katarína after the quarantine measures are over.
In 2018, a real gem for our organization was discovered. In the Slovak National Archive in Bratislava, the oldest surviving photograph (so far) of Katarínka, dated 1904, was discovered. The photo is located in the photo album of the Pálffy family, who are probably also present in the photo itself. It is an irreplaceable source of information for our organization, as the photograph provided us with new, previously unknown facts about Katarínka. This photograph was first presented internally to members and associates of our organization O.Z. Katarínka, during the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Katarínka. But now we are making it available to the general public for the first time.
The timing of the photo (1904) is really fortunate for us. This is because only a year later after the photo was taken, in 1905, the four statues which were originally placed at the top of the tower, were thrown down from the top of the tower into piles of wood and hay and then transported to the vicinity of the Pálffy tomb at the cemetery in Smolenice, where they still can be found to this very day. So thanks to this photo, we can now see that the statues were not on the corners of the tower, as originally thought, but were located in the middle of its walls instead.
These three interesting parts of Katarínka can be seen on the photo, which are not standing anymore:
Brick roof of the tower with holes and decorative volutes on the edges.
Gable of the presbytery on the far left of the photo and the eastern wall of the presbytery with the imprint of the monastery roof. Today, nothing of them stands.
The northern wall of the monastery (to which wooden stables are added on the photo) – only a 1 meter high wall remains.
Detail on the original roof of the tower and the statues which were placed there originally.
Originally it was also assumed that the shape of the roof was completely different. One of the assumptions was the so-called pear-shaped roof, like most churches in Trnava have, but these ideas were wrong. Thanks to this photograph, it is possible to update the digital visualizations of what the whole church and monastery might have looked like. The photograph also provides administrative advantages in case of possible reconstruction of these no longer standing parts, as the authorities usually have problems allowing the reconstruction of parts where it is not fully documented how they originally appeared. However, the reconstruction of the roof is not considered at the moment and probably even in the future.
Katarínka thanks Tomáš Haviar for providing the photo.
For extra curious, you can download the photo in full size, here on this link.
