Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)

The Golden Eagle Pharmacy Museum in Buda Castle

The "Golden Eagle Pharmacy Museum" in Buda Castle. Pharmacy in the Renaissance and in the Baroque (by Mária Vida) In the most frequent street of the Castle Hill district of Buda, the first pharmacy of Buda Castle, founded after the liberation from the Turkish rule, in 1687 by Ferenc Bösingcr, had been working for more than hundrcd-and-sixty years (between 1750-1913). Bösingcr had been the mayor of Buda several times and nobility was granted to him for his scrviccs by King Leopold I. The pharmacy opened originally in the house that existed till 1900 at the site of the now empty ground at No. 1-2, Dísz er. Prior to 1696 it moved into the building at No. 6. Dísz tér, under the sign of the 'Golden Unicorn''

. The name was altered to 'Golden Eagle

' by János Hinger in 1740, by that time the pharmacy had moved to the present building of the museum at No. 16, Tárnok Street, probably between 1735-1754. It acquired the right to bear the 'municipal' title, that is why the arms of Buda arc displayed on the sign board. In the 20th ccntury it assumed the name 'Municipal Pharmacy

'. From 1701 on, the owner of the building was Peter Strudel, manager of the Vienna Acadcmy of Fine Arts, he might have been the painter of the frcscocs. The house was bought from him in 1712 by Lőrinc Stockcr town physician, author of the first book on the public baths of Buda; the first editions of his ' Thermographia Budaensis

' is to be seen in Room IV. The building that houses the pharmacy is a merchant's house from the first half of the 15th ccntury, which together with the neighbouring houses at No. 14 and 16, formed of the shop-street, the 'mcrccric' of Buda. To this refers also the 15th ccntury dispensing door retrived on the side of Anna Street. The house had been reconstruccd several times: the courtyard tract was built around 1490, the still existing barrel vaults were built between 1526 and 1541; the blind niche is a remain of the Renaissance, the lamp niche is from the days of Turkish rule. The painted cciling depicting an a çĥçmist dccoration of yellow stars against an ash-blue background was put on the wall about 1500. (A present it can be seen in the alchemist's laboratory in secondary placement.) The Baroque wall-painting of brick-rcd tone and the sccne at the left side of the shop depicting 'Jesus and the bleeding woman

' (probably the work of the landlord, Peter Strudel), arc from the early 18th ccntury. In the middle of the 18th ccntury, in placc of the nco-Classic, late-Baroque doorframe there used to be a Serbian shop-door, similar to the one in Anna Street, this was blockcd up about 1800. As it is shown on a contemporary etching, the windows on the ground-floor of the shop were protected by a pent-roof, and the em83