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

The very short street called Kard, or sword, connects Országház utca with Bécsi kapu tér.

Walled in by a previous owner into the corner of the building at No. 21 Országház utca is the small fragment of a Roman tombstone. It is debated whether the owner found the item nearby—an unlikely proposition—or just took a fancy to the small head set in the semi-tympanum of the triangle.

In front of the building, whose fagade is slightly set back, stands a full-length statue of actor Márton Lend- vai, the work of László Dunaiszky (1859). Originally, the statue stood outside the old National Theatre, from where it was transferred to the next National Theatre in Blaha Lujza tér before being moved to its current location.

No. 14 once belonged to István Ferenczy (1796- 1856), the pioneer of the art of sculpture in Hungary. Ferenczy lived here from 1834 to 1846, when he retired to his native Rimaszombat. (It was while he was in Rome in 1820-22 that he sculpted his white marble Shepherdess, which he dedicated to his patron Palatine Joseph. His other work entitled The Origins of the Fine Arts is now held by the Hungarian National Gallery.) The plaque commemorating Ferenczy is the work of Ferenc Sidló (1932). The building was converted into its present, three-storey, shape by the next owner, Károly Tenzer.

The Inn to the Fekete Holló, or Back Raven, a restaurant most likely named after the heraldic animal of King Matthias, is in a Gothic part of a fine house of Louis XVI style (at No. 10). Above the gate the arms of a forFragment of the fountain-basin at No. 14 Országház utca

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