Thurzo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thurzo (-German and historical Slovak, modern Slovak: Turzo, Hungarian: Thurzó) was Slovak noble family from the 15th century to the first half of the 17th century.
The ancestors of the Thurzo family came to the Kingdom of Hungary from the Lower Austria. Their original possessions were located around the village of Betlanovce in the Spiš region. Since the end of the 15th century, they were mostly businessmen and entrepreneurs in Kraków, Levoča, Spiš, Gemer, central Slovakia, Transylvania, Bohemia and Germany. In 1494, they established the Thurzo-Fugger company, which is sometimes regarded as the first capitalist company in Europe. Soon, they got a monopoly on the trade with copper and opened new places all over the Europe. Around year 1500 they dominated the production of precious and non-ferrous metals in Hungary.
For the earned money they bought lands around today's Slovakia, and owned several castles and their surroundings, for example Červený Kameň, Lietava, Tematín, Zvolen, Hlohovec, Orava and so on, as well as land in the other parts of the Kingdom of Hungary and Germany.
In the whole 16th and in the first half of the 17th century, they were one of the most prominent families of Hungary, slowly began to control the key top posts in the kingdom and were hereditary chiefs of the Spiš (Szepes at that time) and Orava (Árva) counties.
The Thurzo family died out in the first half of the 17th century, with the Orava-Bytča leg in 1621 and the Spiš legs in 1635 and 1636.
