Ilia
The old market town on the Mureș where Gabriel Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania, was born.
Ilia is a commune on the right bank of the Mureș in the west of the county, made up of Ilia (the seat), Bacea, Brâznic, Bretea Mureșană, Cuieș, Dumbrăvița, Săcămaș, Sârbi and Valea Lungă — some in the river meadow, others at the foot of the Poiana Ruscă and Metaliferi mountains. It appears in records from 1266, and in 1350 as “the market town of Ilia”.
After the Ottomans took the fortress of Lipova in 1552, Ilia became a border stronghold and was ringed with bastions. Farkas Bethlen, granted the estate by Prince Stephen Báthory, built the Red Bastion in 1582. His son Gabriel Bethlen, Prince of Transylvania from 1613 to 1629, was born in the fortress's residential tower in 1580.
In 1670 the other bastions and the walls were pulled down. The Red Bastion, rebuilt in Romantic style after 1850, is known today as Gabriel Bethlen's birthplace, and the manor built around 1848 by Baron Bornemisza now houses the hospital.
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Red Bastion — Gabriel Bethlen's Birthplace
The 1582 bastion of Ilia's border fortress, known as the birthplace of Prince Gabriel Bethlen.
Ilia
Wooden Church, Bretea Mureșană
A wooden church consecrated on 3 March 1653, with two inscriptions in Romanian written in Cyrillic letters.
Ilia