Berza László: Budapest története képekben 1493-1980 - Képkatalógus 1. kötet (1-31978. tétel, 1982)

BEVEZETŐ

INTRODUCTION The picture is a very important tool of learning about the past; its importance is ever growing in our days. The various type pictures supply data data of a source-value for numerous scientific disciplines, in the first place for local historical research. They are equally important for the movement "knowledge of our country". The engravings, drawings, photos contain accurate informations for the researchers, as documents of a sourcevalue they show the development of the townscape, its artistical and technical culture, the changes in the life of the society, the folk customs, the apparels worn in the various periods, the culture of housing the moments of the history of events etc. So the printed picture catalogues serve not alone as handbooks for the local historical research, but are also indispensable aids of the illustration-publishing work, the film production and the school education, promote successfully the activities of the television, the journalism, the propagation of knowledge and offer useful information for the readers of the libraries interested in the past of their place of residence. The picture catalogue, beside presenting the knowledge of the past, is also a mirror of the present social and economical life, projecting the effort of the towndevelopment and the results of our age, revealing the multiple town-forming forces of the industry, the communication and other branches in our days, presenting the living architectural styles and trends, documenting thousands of every-day life moments of the town and its inhabitants, serving the knowledge of both the past and the present. Revealing townscapes is not a recent invention. Similar efforts in our country appeared as far back, as in the 19. century. Flóris Rómer, Zsigmond Bubics have already planned to collect the sources of the pictorial representation of Budapest and others towns of the country, to make them available for the researchers. The most complete collection and description of the townscapes of Budapest is fond in the work of György, Rózsa entitled "Townscapes of Budapest 1493-1800", published in 1963. But the publication of the picture material of the individual towns till the present day is without example so far. So this is the first trial of collecting and publishing the picture materials of a settlement. The work of data revealing was carried out also earlier in the framework of the Budapest Collection of the Municipal Szabó Ervin Library, but the research could be started in an organized and energetical way only in 1955, when the Executive Committee of the Council of the Capital confirmed the Budapest Collection and determined its task, as exploring and publishing the historical documents of the town till the most possible completeness. As a result the "Bibliography of the History of Budapest" was issued in seven volumes between 1967-1974. Simultaneously also the picture catalogue entitled "The History of Budapest in Pictures 1493-1980" developed to a data storage suited for publication, containing the thematically ordered presentations of the area of present-day Budapest, which appeared in close to 500 years from the first known drawing of Buda of the Schedel World Cronicle, published in 1493 till the end of the year 1980. Recognizing the source-value and the extraordinary usefulness and importance of the picture catalogue the Council of the Capital city of Budapest gave material assistance for creating a data storage of about 100.000 items, which proved to be a very useful means of information still in the manuscript form. * The picture material prepared by various graphical methods, resp. printing, or reprographical techniques were collected mostly from the stock of the books and journals of the Budapest Collection, but materials of other libraries and public collections were also amply utilized. The collection extended to pictures prepared by printing and other reprographical processes. The artistical execution was no critical aspect, the main considerations were the information-value and the reproducibility. Efforts were made to discover the original data of the pictures, but in many cases also reproductions had to be accepted, whose original sources could not be revealed. The data of the maps - as pictorial representations - are already contained in the "Bibliography of the History of Budapest", therefore these data were not included in our picture catalogue, but we have processed plan views, designs of individual residential and of public buildings, objects, groups of buildings, smaller parts of the town, with the living quarters accepted as the greatest territorial units. During the collection of the material the aimsetting of an exhaustive completeness would not have been realistic, but the analytical elaboration of the accessible monographical literature and 348 kinds of various types ofperidicals offers a quantitatively ample choice for the users of this picture catalogue, sufficiently rich in genres, with a thematical multiplicity. The thematical ordering of the immense quantity of the material was carried out para! lel I/ with the collection, according to the organization principles of the "Bibliography of the History of Budapest". Generally the