MATHIAS CHURCH (MÁTYÁS TEMPLOM)

A superb church whose exterior is reminiscent of Budapest's golden age in the ^19th century, but whose history goes back much further. Built in the Middle Ages, originally in Romanesque style, the church was remodeled in Gothic style and became a basilica with three naves in the ^14th century. It was in Budavár's Church of Our Lady of the Assumption that Mathias ^I Corvin and Beatrice of Aragon were married in 1476. It was this same king who ordered the construction of today's Matthias Tower. In 1526, the Ottomans took Buda, the church went up in flames and its treasures were evacuated by ship to Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia). The Ottomans then transformed the church into a mosque and walled up a statue of the Virgin Mary. When Eugène de Savoie's troops recaptured Buda, cannon fire finally blew away the wall concealing the statue of the Virgin Mary: an event Hungarians like to call "the miracle of Buda". Legend has it that the Ottomans were so demoralized that they gave in. Ruined, the church was entrusted to the Jesuits, who undertook its partial reconstruction. In 1867, the Mátyás Church was the venue for the coronation of Franz Joseph and Sissi, who mended the royal cloak of the first Christian king, Stephen (István). The building was almost entirely rebuilt between 1873 and 1896 in neo-Gothic style by Frigyes Schulek. The interior frescoes are by Bertalan Székely and Károly Lotz.