Nuns and Scholars
The future function of the complex was still uncertain. It was obvious that the Queen has no intention to use it as a royal residence because she hasn't spent much time in Buda. In 1769 Maria Theresa gave one wing to the Sisters of Loreto from Sankt Pölten known as Englische Fräulein or angolkisasszonyok. The building was officially handed over on 13 May 1770 but the splendid Baroque rooms were absolutely unsuitable for a nunnery. In 1777 the Queen decided that the University of Nagyszombat should move to Buda.
The nuns moved out and the palace was hastily adapted to its educational purpose. The works were guided by Farkas Kempelen. New classrooms, teacher's cabinets, museums, library and a university press was built. In the frontal false dome was removed to erect instead a four-stories observatory tower, planned by Hillebrandt or Karl Georg Zillack.
The ribbon cutting ceremony of the university was held on 25 June 1780, the 40th anniversary of the coronation of the Queen. The throne room became a splendid aula decorated with frescoes depicting the four faculties. In 1953 two grisaille fresco was discovered on the shorter sides of the room.
In 1778 Hillebrandt built a new chapel for the Holy Right of Saint Stephen of Hungary, the mummified right hand of the first Hungarian king, recovered by Queen Maria Therese from the Republic of Ragusa in 1771. The Chapel of the Holy Right was sitatuated near the St Sigismund Chapel, in the middle of an inner court. Its outside form was octagonal, the inside oval and was crowned by a dome. The altar-piece was painted by Joseph Hauzinger.
Read more about this topic: History Of Buda Castle
Famous quotes containing the words nuns and, nuns and/or scholars:
“Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother’s reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother’s reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“You should look straight at a film; that’s the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.”
—Werner Herzog (b. 1942)