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

Széchenyis Fountain was erected in the first public park in Budapest in 1930 to honour his memory and the fact that he

SUGGESTED THE IDEA OF THE PARK

AZ Ő BETŰJE MEGÖLI A HATALMASKODÁST, AZ Ő LELKE MEGELEVENÍTI AZ IGAZSÁGOT. 1928.

[This fountain was ereded by grateful Hungarians to honour the worthy son of Great Britain, Viscount Rothermere. His writing destroys tyranny, his spirit resurrects justice. 1928.1

The relief no longer exists, the inscription has been removed, the sword is lost and the scales are broken. The eternal fate of symbols has dispensed justice in its own way to this sculpture by István Szentgyörgyi, whose work was paid for by the People’s Education Film Company.

Other fountains were simply erected to honour the memory of some eminent personality. These, too, constitute a subcategory of city ornamentation. The 1.2 metre bronze statue of Samu Pecz, president of the University of Technology and designer of several buildings in Budapest, stands dressed as a medieval master builder in Szilágyi Dezső tér, close by a church designed by Pecz. The costume is not accidental: the

46