Radó Dezső: Parks and Forests - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1992)

several times. Mór Jókai, the famous 19th-century novelist suggested that King Matthias had a game park here, although this assumption lacks historical evidence. Many sources, however, support the view that György Dózsa, the leader of the 1514 peasant uprising, had his headquarters here.

According to the chronicles, after the Turkish occupation the new settlers restored the devastated area by planting trees. Subsequently the area was called Town Forest, it was annexed to the city of Pest by Lipót I. First only scattered plantations existed. Later Maria Theresa ordered the systematic planting of the area, which was started in 1751. Willows were planted first, followed by locust and mulberry trees. The locust tree occurs so frequently that it is often thought a native of Hungary, although it was introduced from America. It was first planted in the park of Versailles by a French gardener called Robin. (The Latin name of the species is Robinia pseudoacacia.) It was introduced to Hungary during the 17th and 18th centuries.

In that period the Town Forest or New Town Forest - both names were in use - was gradually turned into a recreation area.

In 1808 Palatine József announced a competition administered by the Improvement Committee founded by him for the development of the area. Henrik Neb- bien, a gardener and economic advisor of French descent, won the competition and the award of 200 gold coins with his entry entitled The Public Garden of Hungary. One of the oldest buildings of the park, a house belonging to the Nebbien manor, is still standing beside the Széchenyi Bath.

In the southeastern part of the park there is a famous tombstone between the Statue Park of the Fine Arts Fund and the Garden of the Blind. In a tomb just north of this rests Jakab Horváth, a lawyer and defence attorney of Martinovics, one of the 18th-century “Hungarian Jacobins”. Horváth donated his wealth to charity and wanted to be buried in the park. A single word was engraved on his tombstone: Fuit (once was) 1809. The last verses of the Song about the Park of Pest, a poem of János Arany read:

You may have won in your life

All wreaths of earth and sky,

Your name is just what a graue-stone

In this park reveals: Fuit

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