Cincu

Cincu was a Saxon settlement in southern Transylvania, centred on a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The large Romanesque basilica served both worship and the security of its community. Between 1522 and 1526 the church was fortified, as inscriptions in its choir and nave record. Its walls and towers offered a place of refuge in a country exposed to raids and war. The building was altered again after the Ottoman threat receded and after a fire in 1789, preserving traces of several periods in the life of the settlement.