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

László Hünyadi’s wake (Viktor Madarász, 1859)

Across the street there used to be a church and a monastery on the site of the building at Mo. 49 Úri utca, which is joined to No. 28 Országház utca and which stands above medieval wall-fragments. Here also was the former “Nagy Szerecsen ház”, or Great Negro House, owned during the reign of Louis the Great of Hungary by two Italians from Padova called János and Jakab. The two of them, stewards of the mint chamber, sold the property to the Garais or Garas family, which provided the country with two Palatines in the persons of Miklós, between 1402 and 1432, and László, from 1447 to 1458. László, a staunch supporter of the king, played an important part in sidelining the Hunyadis by arresting László and Mátyás, or Matthias, and with the execution of the former. For a while the house belonged to János Corvinus, natural son of King Matthias. The plot was donated to the Poor Clares in the early 18th century.

When the Poor Clares’ order was dissolved by Joseph II, architect F. A. Hillebrandt had the church tower pulled down and the cloister rebuilt. The High Court of Justice was housed here, then the Council of the Governor and finally the National Archives until 1923. To provide convenient housing for an ever growing bureaucracy, the neighbouring building (No. 51) was joined to this one in 1824. Today the Telephone Museum

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