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

under King Sigismund, the building belonged to the Florentine Filippo Scolari, also known as Fipo of Ozora or Pipo Spano. (Scolari was for a time the scribe of Demeter Széchy, Archbishop of Esztergom. He was “raised” from this position by the king, who employed him at the court in 1387. He served as a diplomat, a general and, eventually, as the Governor of Szörény and the Count of Temes. He taught “martial arts” to János Hunyadi, had a church built in Ozora, a hospital in Lippa and a chapel in Székesfehérvár. Frescos decorating these buildings were painted by the renowned Renaissance master Masolino da Panicale. Regrettably, these, together with the buildings they adorned, were destroyed in the course of the following centuries.)

No. 19 housed the Municipality of Pest-Pilis County from 1698, the Eötvös family acquiring the property in 1806. The family resided here until 1829 when they moved to the Batthyány Mansion in Dísz tér where they lived until 1841. There is a statue of József Eötvös (Adolf Huszár, 1879) in the square named after him by the Pest embankment.

The building at No. 18-20 Úri utca used to belong to the Széchenyi family. In 1939 it housed the Prime Minister’s office.

No. 13 Úri utca, at the corner of Anna utca, is decorated on its fagade by graceful lion figures holding a coat of arms. What remains of its decorative wall painting is on display in the Budapest History Museum.

Historian László Szalay (1813-64), was bom in the building at No. 6. Szalay worked for the poet who wrote the words of Hungary’s anthem, Kölcsey in 1831-32. In 1838 he was already a member of the Learned Society, which prefigured the Academy of Sciences. (His comprehensive four-volume work covers the history of Hungary.)

A curiosity of scientific interest is that inside Castle Hill, beneath the area bordered by Dísz tér, Tárnok utca, Szentháromság utca and Országház utca, there is an extensive system of travertine caves. The underground network, where the temperature is a constant 16 degrees Celsius, consists of cavities created by thermal waters, and the formation of stalactites and stalagmites can be observed to this day. The system is believed to contain nearly eighty dug-out wells, which provided the popu64