N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Buda - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

Mine into monastery - the Bátori Cave

■ Part oh the aragonite hall

Exploration of the cave was a continuous process from the Middle Ages onwards. The cave was rediscovered on several occasions and then filled again for safety reasons, only to be reopened once again. In 1830 it was discovered by Nándor Tomola, who made drawings (maps, in fact) of its cavities. Credit likely goes to him for the fact that the municipality of Buda passed a decree on naming the cave on 17 June 1847, an act which can be considered to be the first formal act of cave-christening. The cave was also mentioned in a description made by Imre Palugyai in 1852. In 1878, the newspaper Vaiámapi Ujiás (Sunday News) reported that a cave named Aranka, after a female member of an association of tourists, had been known for a long time and was in fact identical with the Bátori Cave. Professor of geology and mineralogy József Szabó traversed the cave following the directions in Tomola's description. In 1878, Tivadar Margó described several species of bat living in the cave, which were regarded as unique in the fauna of Buda at the time.

On the initiative of the Zugliget Association, the municipality of Budapest

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