Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)
The Golden Eagle Pharmacy Museum in Buda Castle
blem of the pharmacy, the 'Golden Eagle ' decorated the front wall of the first floor just at the corner. The present signboard above the entrance door was made after the original by the goldsmith József Pölöskey. The present neo-Classic facade of the building was made about 1820. Pharmacy in the Renaissance and in the Baroque The practicc that developed in the 15-18th centuries has primordial importance in the development of pharmacy. Based on this period, the permanent exhibition of the ancient pharmacy thematically consits of two main parts: the first big room show the cvocativc interior of the apothecary's shop representing drug trade, together with vessels, mortars, as well as the most significant Hungarian and foreign pharmacopeias; the second and third rooms show the preparation of drugs in the 'alchemist's work-shop' with laboratory equipments. In the first room on the left, there is to be seen the unknown Transylvanian painter's work from about 1730, depicting the patron saints of međiç¡nç and pharmacy Cosmas and Damian amidst their healing activity. (The painting was made after an etching by Franz Ambrois Dictcl.) In the vault of the Baroque wall-painting there has been installed the reconstruction of a pharmacy interior including also the original drawers that had belonged to the ancient 'Black Saracen' pharmacy, founded before 1647, and had been preserved in the possession of the Kiittcl family through centuries long. (After the plans of Mária Vida.) The two red marble lion stand on either side of the counter are from the late 17th century and had belonged to the original interior of the 'Golden Eagle' pharmacy. The 'pcasant'-Baroquc wooden statue of St. Rochus guarding against the plague was carvcd by a master of Western Hungary in the second half of the 18th century. On the shelving, there is an 18th-century bronze spiral eolumned balance in the middle. Ceramic albcrclli and syrup jars from Italy and also from Delft, Antwerp and Germany, as well as Hungarian glass and wooden pharmacy vessels arc placed on the shelves. An outstanding piece is the large-sized faicncc vessel from Antwerp about 1600, with the inscription 'Nuces condita' (candied nuts). In the interior, there is hanging left on the wall a hand-painted journeyman's certificate orned with coloured drawing which depicts also a pharmacy interior (officina), it was granted to Mihály Szenn the Brothers of Mercy in 1791. The large glass-cases display the most beautiful Italian and Hungarian ceramic, glass and wooden drug jars, mortars, scales, a weight holder, pharmacopoeias, prescriptions, a certificate, etc. From among the Italian vessels of the 16—18th centuries the most remarkable ones are the spouted syrup jar from the workshop of Domenico da Vcnczia, about 1560-1570, the 17th century waistcd albarello to contain the sedative 'Diacodion' (poppy-head syrup), or the Castelli jar from 1702 84
