Meskó Csaba: Thermal Baths - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

why the undertaking was completed by his successor Mustapha Sokollu. The central section is a multi-tiered, octagonal vaulted hall containing an octagonal pool. There are deep niches between the squat pillars supporting the dome. Arching above the lancet windows is a spherical cupola. Illumination is provided by hexagonal openings in the ceiling.

Evliya Cheleby writes about the bath of the Khoros (Rooster) Gate:

"... a small and useful bath. Its ceramic-covered, pink cupola is built above eight vaults. Clean hot water spouts night and day from lion mouths on the four sides of the pool in the middle. But this is so hot that no man can step into it. ”

The 1686 siege, which ended the Turkish occupation, virtually wiped out the small buildings of the nether town. It is a miracle of sorts that the baths survived such wholesale devastation.

In 1687 Leopold I donated the baths to his court physician Frigyes Ferdinánd Ilimen After changing hands several times ownership of the bath was transferred to Ferenc König in 1796. This is how geographer János Hunfalvy describes the baths in 1859:

“It is now the property of the König family, which is why it is called König or, in its Hungarian translation, Király (King) Bath. Its present building was completed in 1826. It has two courtyards; the larger has 4 stone baths besides the drinking well, which are all from Turkish times, and there are also ten apartment rooms here; in the smaller one there is a public bath, also from Turkish times, and then 4 stone baths as well as 13 apartment rooms. ”

The baths were later reconstructed to plans by the master well-driller Mathias Schmidt in neo-Classical style, keeping the Turkish and baroque sections intact. In their above mentioned book Hankó and Gerlóczy provide this description of these baths:

“The Király baths are at Ho. 243 upper Fő utca (Main Street) in Víziváros (Water Town); they are not used so much as medicinal baths as for hygienic purposes. Their

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