Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)

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VAC'S REMAINS FROM THE LATE MIDDLE AGES (1 301-1 526) 77

P

I The Pointed Tower

monastery there is a hand-basin made of red marble; the Franciscans used the top-slab of Miklós Báthori's tomb to make it. Although the inscription was smoothed away, we know the epitaph from a record. Besides the carvings Renaissance floor bricks were also found in the area of the castle. The new style had an effect on some of the burghers, too: the Renaissance relics found in the course of excavations in some townhouses in Vác show that some citizens made alterations in their houses. However, the Renaissance had hardly any effect on the appearance of the town, both the

town houses and the church buildings were dominated by the Gothic style. Speaking of early Renaissance architecture, it was typical everywhere in Hungary including Vác that Renaissance and Gothic styles lived side by side instead of succeeding each other.

The majority of the remnants that have survived from the buildings of the late medieval Vác are underground. Below the houses of the town centre there are dozens of vaulted medieval cellars. One of them is open to the public in Széchenyi Street, while the underground restaurant in Március 15 Square might have been the cellar of a building - perhaps the town hall - standing next to the church. There is only one overground building from the Middle Ages, which has survived in its original form: the Pointed Tower on the Danube bank, which was a bastion of the wall surrounding the German town.

Reconstructed Renaissance floor at the diocesan exhibition

The cellar of the medieval town hall (?)

in the Main Square