Prakfalvi Endre: Roman Catholic Churches in Unified Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2003)

The St. Stephen Church (Basilica) of Lipótváros (Leopold Town), 1905

slender steeples; the central motif of this front is a triumphal arch framed by fluted giant pilasters with Corinthian capitals. In the tympanum, the prototype of which can be found on St. Andrew’s Church in Mantova by Alberti, there is a sculptural group of Hungary's saints, and St. Leopold adoring the Madonna with the infant Jesus (the work of Leó Feszler).

"The lunette windows on the north and south fronts of the transept,” as Mária Kemény observes in her description of the building, "were given a framing of giant pilaster and tympanum, similar to that of the aedicule-style gate in the central axis. The semi-circular sacristy has a balustered ledge, which is decorated with statues of the apostles and rests on a colonnade with Ionic capitals. (This is the work of Feszler as is the statue of Christ on the eastern pediment.) There is an aedicule- style entrance to each of the northern and the southern porches inserted between the apse of the sacristy and the corner chapels on the east. Topping the small spires above these entrances is a hallmark of Ybl's work: the motif of a small stone dome. The triple windows topped with semicircular arches on the drum of the great dome are separated from each other by embossed niches above the support pillars of the crossing. In these niches there are the huge seated figures of the Evangelists (also designed by Feszler). The lower section of the drum is crowned with a balustered ledge. The window pediment of the second drum section above is already cut in the cornice, where the ribbed shell of the dome starts. The trellised, pavilion-like lantern rises above a balcony with a robust, braided balustrade.”

Completion of the church, including the face-work, the ornamental painting, several sculptural details, the organ loft and the design and installation of the pulpit, was left to the third architect, József Kauser. The iconography enriching and complementing the meaning of the House of God was created by Lénárd Lollok, the parish priest. The three central points of emphatic significance are the sculptural groups of the main front, the dome and the apse.

Their position and their height, comparable to that of the dome itself, make the twin towers similar to those of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. In their niches are the three Latin church fathers, SS Gregory Major, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine. (These are the work of Feszler, Ede Mayer and Béla Brestyánszky, a disciple of Cassagrande.)

In the porch, the medallion of St. Stephen was carved into Carrara marble by Károly Senyei. The three-part door wing is ornamented with the bronze busts of the twelve apostles (by Ödön Szamovolszky). D.O.M. sub invoc(atione) S(ancti) Stephani (To God Almighty in memory of St. Stephen), says a dedicatory line on

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