Alba Carolina fortress was built by the Austrian Habsburgs in the 18th century, after their takeover of Transylvania. It was built on the ancient medieval fortress which had, in turn, been erected upon the Roman camp of Emperor Trajan’s elite Legion XIII Gemina settled here in 106, after the Roman conquest of Dacia.

Within the walls of Alba Carolina fortress it is the impressive Saint Michael Catholic Cathedral, a Romanesque monument whose construction began in 1004.

In this ancient cathedral from Alba Iulia was laid to rest in glory John Hunyadi, the former regent of Hungary. Renowned Hungarian military commander of Wallachian (Romanian) ancestry,  John Hunyadi stopped the offensive of Sultan Mehmed II, the Conqueror of Constantinople. The famous Belgrade battle took place in 1456.

Read more:

• The Raven, the Ring, the King
  Facts, legends and suppositions about John Hunyadi’s ancestry

• The Noon Bell and the Feast of Transfiguration –
  two legacies of John Hunyadi’s victory over the Turks

It looks that decades after the death of John Hunyadi, the Ottomans desecrated the grave and mutilated his carved face on his tombstone.