second half of the 16th century A hunting lodge turned into a frontier postZ poľovníckeho sídla pohraničná pevnôstka

In the second half of the sixteenth century the castle stopped being a comfort and became a job. Ottoman raiding parties were pushing up from the south into this country, so Vígľaš was given a new ring of fortification with four corner towers, a defensive wall, an entrance tower with a drawbridge and a deep ditch cut into the rock; a tall six-sided watchtower was built nearby, and a permanent garrison was kept inside. It worked. Raiders hit the villages around here hundreds of times across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the castle itself was never taken by the Ottomans — which is worth remembering, because in Slovakia "destroyed by the Turks" is said of a great many castles that were not.V druhej polovici 16. storočia prestal byť hrad pohodlím a stal sa službou. Osmanské oddiely sa tlačili z juhu do tohto kraja, a tak Vígľaš dostal nové opevnenie so štyrmi nárožnými vežami, obranným múrom, vstupnou vežou s padacím mostom a hlbokou priekopou vysekanou v skale; neďaleko postavili vysokú šesťbokú strážnu vežu a v hrade držali stálu posádku. Fungovalo to. Nájazdníci v 16. a 17. storočí zasiahli okolité dediny stovky ráz, ale samotný hrad Turci nikdy nedobyli — a to je dobré si zapamätať, lebo na Slovensku sa „zbúrali ho Turci“ hovorí o množstve hradov, pri ktorých to nie je pravda.