Szatmári Gizella: Signs of Remembrance - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)

Turk under Buda included not only Italy or Spain but even Belgium, Scotland and England (some sources mention the Duke of York’s son, and one Rupert, son of the Duke of Cumberland and grandson of James 1). These people's memory is honoured by the plaque in Bécsi kapu tér, District I, mounted on the structure of the restored gate. With its universal appeal, the Latin of the inscription is meant to express the unity of the multinational forces:

IN MEMÓRIÁM HEROUM CHRIST1ANORUM PRO ŰRBE BUDA MORTUORUM ANNO MDCLXXXVi, meaning: "In memory of the Christian heroes who died for the Castle of Buda." The message of the plaque is enhanced by a memorial light placed in a niche in a way to form a compositional unit of Buda's municipal arms carved in stone. Here, too, the language of the inscription is Latin, reading VIRTUTITRIUMPHANTI SACRUM, or "the sacred memorial place of triumphant valour."

The memorial light and the classically simple lettering of the inscription are the work of sculptor Béla Ohmann, as is the angel figure running opposite the light and proclaiming, since 1936, too, this: BUDA REGIA EX SERVITUTE IN LIBERTATÉM REST1TUTA A. D. MDCLXXXVI, or "Released from servitude A. D. 1686, reborn in liberty.”

This rebirth cost plenty of blood shed, particularly in the vicinity of Bécsi kapu, or the Vienna Gate. The Brandenburg army was beaten back from here twice, and it was here, on 25 July 1686, that the largest Turkish counterattack

■ Heinrich Fauit. The Triumphal March of Charles of Lorraine (1694)

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