Szatmári Gizella: Walks in the Castle District - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)
Next door to the block of the Military History Institute and Museum, at No. 1 Kapisztrán tér, is the Municipality of District I, housed in the former residence of master builder Lajos Kimnach and later the building of the State Printing Office. The building stands on a historic site. It was here that, during the siege of Buda in 1686, Dávid Petneházy, previously a colonel in Thököly’s insurrectionary army but by then serving his former commander’s enemy, the Hapsburgs, broke in with his relief forces to fight the Turks, as contemporary sources put it, as “a lion”. His story is recounted by Mór Jókai in his romantic tale of 1859, Az utolsó budai basa (The Last Pasha of Buda). The noted 19th-century novelist draws an authentic picture of Buda under Turkish rule, the events of the siege which brought liberation, and Petneházy’s heroism. In his monumental painting Budavár bevétele (The capture of the Buda Castle), Gyula Benczúr also commemorated the valiant captain in the company of chief commanders Charles of Lorraine, Eugene of Savoy and other notables. This outstanding example of Hungarian historical painting, which was prepared for the 200th anniversary of Buda’s retaking, is on permanent display in the Hungarian National Gallery. From Kapisztrán tér, we can exit from the Castle District via Petermann bíró utca and Bécsi kapu tér towards Víziváros. Walk Rue DISZ TÉR—TÁRNOK ÜTCA— BALTA KÖZ—(the south end of) ÚRI ÜTCA—THE FEHÉRVÁR GATE A walk up Hunyadi János utca takes us from Víziváros to Dísz tér. On account of its central location, the latter was called Haupt Platz in 1696, to be renamed in 1728 Parade Platz due to the parades held by the royal and imperial palace guards whose barracks stood at the southern end of the square. In 1848-49 its name was István tér—Stephen Square—possibly out of respect for the Palatine who was sympathetic to the revolutionary ideas of the War of Independence. (In the Middle 57
