Buza Péter: Spring and Fountains - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)

The water thus taken to the main square was King Mátyás’ gift and so was, in all likelihood, the Castle’s public well, decorated with the royal coat of arms featuring a raven and built to use that water. The fountain was installed in Szent- háromság tér, where it remained after its reconstruction when the system was modernized under the supervision of the above-mentioned Konrad Kerschensteiner in 1718. As the dedication ceremony fell on 30 July, the vigils of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the patron saint of the Jesuits, the artist Antal Hörger was commissioned to carve the his sculpture. For a long time this sculpture decorated the cistern. At the cistern’s the public could help themselves to the water they needed, while there were men delivering water in butts on their backs to those who could not be bothered to get it themselves.

This “Jesuit well" provided water, through auxiliary pipelines as a kind of central cistern, to three more points in the Castle area-Dísz tér, Franciscan Square in Országház utca, which has been built on since then, and Hess András tér. We have already mentioned that the system was added to and modernized around the end of the 18th century. It was then that the fountain in Szentháromság tér was given its octagonal basin shape, and that the statue of Pallas Athena, Patroness of the City, by the Como-born Adami Carlo, was put on it. A reproduction of the original sculpture still stands in the fountain’s vicinity to evoke memories of times past. The stone- carved figure of St. Ignatius of Loyola also exists, even though Father Konrad would hardly recognize it. For a while it decorated the Church of Our Lady, i.e. the Matthias, Church, but when that was rebuilt about a hundred years ago, the sculpture was taken to Máriaremete, where it was greatly transformed... it became St. Ladislas.

The semi-circle of hills directly around the town was called Dreibrunnenberg, i.e. the Hill of Three Wells/Springs. It can hardly be doubted that the unknown godfather had the three above-mentioned springs in mind-Béla Well, Nádor-kút [Palatine Well] and Sváb-kút [Swab Well], which is also known as Orbán Well. There was also, however, a fourth spring, which can still be reached following hikers’ footpaths. Its name is Disznófő-forrás [Boar’s Head Spring], The first known written mention of this name was made in the first part of the 19th century, when it was referred to as Saukopf. In earlier times it was called Király [King] Well-Kiral-bunar in Turkish times-and, for a while, Mátyáscsorgó [Matthias Tricklet], (The piece of writing which uses that name adds the appellation “Disznófej” in parentheses.) From 1880 water flowed from an iron spout cast in the shape of a boar head. Its predecessor, according to a newspaper article in 1867, was a carved stone boar. There is almost nothing that we know with any certainty

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