The first written mention of the village of Fričovce dates back to 1320 after the division of the property of the noble family of Mers. Later, the Frych family became the owner for a long period, the first of them was Ján Frychy. The family was active in Fričovce until the end of the 17th century.
The Renaissance manor house, which is a manifestation of the culmination of the period of manor house construction in Slovakia, was built by Valent Berthóty in 1623 - 1630. The plans of the building were made by the builder Michal Sorger from Prešov. During the reign of Dominik Ghilláni the building was rebuilt in 1840.
The manor house is unique for its sgraffito figural decoration, which was completed in 1630 by Martin Waxman, a painter and graffiti artist of the 17th century in Hungary. The artist executed his work using the two-colour sgraffito technique, using ivory and grey-black charcoal. If you look at the sgraffito decoration of the manor house, you will notice that the artist depicted the heads with a comparison to the body of the figures larger to apply the principle of the vertical perspective view of the viewer from bottom to top.
Originally about 150 historical and mythological figures decorate the fields of the horizontal gable attic of the manor house. The selection of figures is varied from the most diverse areas: ancient gods along with symbolic figures of human virtues, then there are figures from antiquity, Hungarian and Polish history, and among the kings and sultans there are also the warlord Jan Žižka and the sultan Amurat. A gallery of the reigning emperors of the glorious Roman Empire and prominent personalities of Hungary is depicted by the author on the front façade of the mansion. On the front façade of the manor house, the sgraffito coat of arms of the Berthoty family has been preserved - a heraldic shield with an eagle and a royal crown in the lower part.
The surroundings of the manor house are surrounded by a park from the north and west, from the south and east there is a park-landscaped courtyard, which is continuously connected with the park. Originally the park was a larger complex with a stream running through its centre. In the final stage, the surroundings of the manor house were landscaped as a nature-landscape park not only with an entrance courtyard, an elaborate water system, an orchard and vegetable gardens, but also with ornamental parterres and recreation areas. In addition to the manor house, the former mill and granary have been preserved.
In the second half of the 19th century, the Ghillányi family had a nature and landscape park established on the foundations of the older garden. The entrance to the area was designed as a regular circular area with a traffic circle. Originally there was a well in the centre of the entrance area. The main compositional axis of the park is a natural watercourse and a moat fed from it, with an ingenious water system and an embankment for a small hydroelectric power station built at the beginning of the 20th century. The basic skeleton of the park consists of deciduous trees aged between one hundred and one hundred and twenty years, in the species composition of lime, horse chestnut and maple.
Since 1998, the Tomková family has become the owner of the manor house, reviving this monument from its almost 40-year-long dormancy. The completely dilapidated cultural monument required a general overhaul through structural security, restoration of the exteriors and interiors of the manor itself, the outbuildings and the park.
Source/Photo: Fričovce Manor
