Residence of The Palatines
Functional problems of the university remained basically unresolved, so in 1783 the faculties were moved to Pest. In 1791 the palace became the residence of the new Habsburg Palatine of the Kingdom of Hungary, Archduke Alexander Leopold. After the early death of the palatine in 1795, his younger brother Archduke Joseph succeeded him. The last palatine of Hungary was Archduke Stephen between 1847 and 1848. The palatinal court in Buda Castle was the centre of fashionable life and high society in the Hungarian capital.
In 1810 the palatinal palace was damaged by a fire. In the next decades many plans were made to raise the building with an upper storey but they weren't executed, although the observatory tower, which hindered the works, was removed in. In 1838 the crypt of the St. Sigismund Chapel was rebuilt according to the plans of Franz Hüppmann. The Palatinal Crypt was the burial place of Palatine Joseph and his family. The crypt is the only part of the palace that survived the destruction of the Second World War.
Palatine Joseph established gardens on the southern and eastern hillsides of the Castle Hill according to the plans of Antal Tost. The gardens of Buda Castle were among the most famous English-style landscape gardens in Hungary.
Palatine Stephen finally left the palace on 23 September 1848 when the break between the liberal Hungarian government and the dynasty became inevitable.
On 5 January Buda was occupied by the Austrian army led by Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz. The chief commander lodged in the royal palace.
On 4 May 1849 Artúr Görgey's Hungarian army laid siege on Buda Castle, defended by General Heinrich Hentzi. On 20 May the Hungarians captured Buda with a great assault. The palace was the last stronghold of the Austrian troops and became a site of heavy artillery fighting. The ensuing fire consumed the central and southern wings that completely burned out and their interiors were destroyed.
Read more about this topic: History Of Buda Castle
Famous quotes containing the word residence:
“My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university; and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circulating library, I had more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world, whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)