Szatmári Gizella: Walks in the Castle District - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

Hess András tér), stands on the site of several medieval predecessors. One of these is likely to have belonged in 1395 to the chief of the king’s stable, István Lackffy. Earlier, according to the Thuróczy Chronicle of 1388, Palatine István Hédervári Kont may have taken up residence here before being arraigned and then beheaded in 1393, during the reign of King Sigismund. Along with thirty accomplices, he was executed on Szent György tér for high treason. It was here, in the only inn within the Castle area at the time, that in 1760 the first theatrical performances were held in Buda. At the end of the 18th century the house was owned by master builder Máté Nepauer (who built the staircase and the western wing of the Buda Town Hall, and the so-called School Stairs leading to Víziváros, as well as the previously-mentioned Erdődy Mansion). At the beginning of the 19th century the building housed Höhn’s Boarding School for Young Ladies and then, in the 1840s, the lottery bureau. (Orphans are said to have been given new clothes after each draw.) During the siege of 1849 the building was used as a military hospital, and was then converted into a police headquarters after 1850 under the command of a commissioner called Prottmann.

On the site of No. 4 Hess András tér, there used to stand three houses in the 14th century. Evidence of the medieval origins survives in the form of sedilia under the barrel-vault of the gateway, the console in the gate, and the small lancet-window in the stairwell upstairs. Some sources believe that it was probably here that the town house of the Hunyadi family stood.

In 1696 the Jesuits established another centre of learning (an academy) opposite their school at today’s No. 5. In 1773 the order was dissolved and in the same year the University of Nagyszombat was moved to Buda, into the building of the royal palace. Here it remained in operation until 1784 when it was relocated to Pest. The former Jesuit school was integrated into the university. The transfer of this distinguished institution of higher education to Buda gave a significant impetus to progress here. As street lighting was installed, as many as 198 oil lamps “flooded the streets with light”.

In 1785 the building housing the academy was occupied by the office of the Royal Chamber’s chairman.

József Damkó’s statue of Pope Innocent XI was set

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