Szatmári Gizella: Walks in the Castle District - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

No. 6 Fortuna utca features, above the door, the relief of a reclining Cupid set in a semicircular carved wooden field. During reconstruction in 1935 valuable coins were brought to light. The find comprised 140 tallér pieces from the late 1570s, that is from Turkish times. The large amount of foreign coinage suggests that the former owner is very likely to have been a merchant.

The upstairs windows of the building at No. 7 are guarded by cherubs’ heads, and the keystone of the gate is embellished with a Gorgon-like head with an archaic smile. The relief on No. 9 depicting the goddess Fortuna (Ferenc Medgyessy, 1921) echoes the name of the street.

Displaying as it does some characteristics of the neo-Classical style, the facade of No. 11 features (the replica of) a statue of the Virgin Mary in Baroque style. Between 1850 and 1883, archivist Jakab Rupp, an eminent historian specialising in the history of the “dual capital” Pest and Buda, lived in this building. Published in 1868, his major work on the subject (Buda-Pest és környékének helyrajzi története) is not only indispensable for the specialist because of the wealth of detailed information it contains, but a page- turner for the general reader, too. A reprint of the book was issued in 1987.

The varied history of the Castle District is well illustrated by the building at No. 14 Fortuna utca. Although its stone-framed gate and the decorative closed balcony on the faqade are both of Baroque style, the building has preserved a number of medieval elements during the centuries of its troubled history. This is suggested, for example, by the date 1514, the year of the peasant uprising led by György Dózsa, carved in one of the Gothic gate-frames.

No. 17 Fortuna utca was a kind of Baroque artists’ abode in the 18th century. Stone-cutter János Lajos Erdinger was the first of a line of artists residing here. He was followéd by Salzburg-born Tamás Schwarzin- ger, a sculptor who worked on the Holy Trinity Column in Buda Castle under Fülöp Ungleich, together with the Italian Antal Amini. Amini carved the ornaments, while János Gáspár Landtrachtinger, the proprietor in 1709, painted and covered the sculptures with golden foil. Landtrachtinger later held a post in the municipality.

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