Budapest Régiségei 17. (1956)

ANYAGKÖZLÉSEK - Gerő Győző: Adatok a budai vár törökkori építészetéhez : a Fehérvári rondella építéstörténete 261-278

GY. GERO ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE FORTRESS OF BUDA DURING THE TURKISH OCCUPATION. ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF THE »FEHÉRVÁR« RONDEL Simultaneously with the excavations in the area of the Royal Palace, explorations were started next to the garden of the palace of the quondam Archduke Joseph to elucidate the position of the whilom »Fehérvár«-rondel and gate tower. In the course of the excavations and the regulation of the ground, the remnants of two parallel rondels came to the surface (Fig. 1—2), and this has raised the problem of how the ramparts were connected and at what time they had been built. The earliest representation (Fig. 4), dating from 1541, shows as yet no trace of a rondel. Siebmacher's print, made in 1598 (Fig. 5), is the first in which a rondel in the area in question is represented. Incidentally, this is the first picture which shows Buda Turkish town. The scanty inner ruins that have now been unearthed seem to have belonged to the rondel represented in the picture. It was probably built between the years 1572 and 1598 by Sokollu Mustafa Pasha. Representations of the fortress become rarer and rarer after the middle of the 17th century, to appear again in greater numbers during the sieges of 1684—1686; engravings dating from this period depict scenes of the sieges. It is mostly from Turkish written sources that we can gather reliable information as to the process of construction that was in progress during the 17th century. Evlie Tshelebi who stayed at Buda between the years 1660 and 1664 remarked upon the unfinished construction of a powerful rondel begun in the neighbourhood of the Ovu (the later »Fehérvár«) gate. This is identical with the now unearthed large outer rondel begun by Gürdji Keman who was appointed three times Pasha of Buda. The construction was then completed by Kasim Pasha who, to commemorate the event, had a memorial tablet placed in the wall of the rondel. This tablet, broken up into three parts, has been recovered in the later course of the excavations : it indicates the years 1667 — 1668 as the time at which the construction of the rondel was finished. The architectural style of the rondel is typically Turkish. An improvised fortification partially unearthed in the palace grounds north of the monument of Eugene of Savoy, reveals the same technique of construction (Fig. 10—11). It is this rondel which is depicted in the engravings that appeared after the second half of the 17th century, and it is probable that also the gate that belonged to it was reconstructed at that time. Both the rondel and its storied gate-tower are well observable in the print which shows Buda from the west side and was made by Hallart (Fig. 12) during the siege in 1684. The story of the tower is no longer visible in a print from 1686 (Fig. 13). Ground plans prepared during the recapture of the fortress (Fig. 14) show that the rondel remained unchanged up to the time of the conflagration in 1723 (Fig. 16 — 17). According to the plan of reconstruction made after the conflagration two casemates were to be added to the rondel, while the gate fort was to retain its tripartite arrangement (Fig. 18). It was possible to unearth a small part of these casemates, which proves that the said reconstruction plan was actually carried out, if only partially. The tripartite arrangement of the gate fort is no longer shown in a ground plan from 1749 in which only the innermost tower, the outside gate, and the rondel are seen to have remained. Barracks were erected in the south wall of the tower. Though the rondel and the gate damaged during the War of Liberty of 1848—1849 were restored (Fig. 19), both of them were demolished in the course of the town-planning operations that were carried out at the end of the last, and the beginnig of the present century (Fig. 20). The inner rondel has now been reconstructed, while the remains of the outer rondel, that of Kasim Pasha, will be included in a park and so made accessible to the public, 277