Tag: saint stephen

Postcard from Toulouse, France: Centuries of alterations craft a catawampus cathedral

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Cathedrale Saint Etienne de Toulouse

The approach makes it obvious. The Cathedral dedicated to Saint Stephen (5-33 A.D.) in Toulouse is the product of numerous architects over numerous centuries. And the interior is equally as cobbled together, held together by a column so inartistically enormous in circumference that I neglected to take its picture. But those incongruities make it all the more interesting to explore.

The first church buried underneath all of this brick dated from the 3rd century and was later topped by a Romanesque cathedral. At the beginning of the 13th century, an expanded French Gothic nave was completed in the regional “flavor” known as Raymondine, for Raymond VI, the Count of Toulouse. Raymond VI (1152-1222) was a key player in the constant tug of war, actually wars, waged for control between the King of France and King Henry II of England and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine. And also the Holy Roman Emperor and Alfonso II of Aragon. Alliances were complicated and always shifting.

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Postcard from Budapest, Hungary: A palatial neighborhood

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Saint Sebastian (?-288) generally is depicted as turned into a bristling porcupine by arrows shot into him upon orders of Roman Emperor Diocletian (244-312). Although left for dead, Sebastian managed to recover from these seemingly mortal wounds, surviving to taunt the emperor about abuses against Christians on another day. Offended, Diocletian ordered Sebastian clubbed to death. The second brutal sentence brought the results the emperor desired.

It is not surprising that a saint capable of recovering from the archers’ multiple piercings of his body was turned to for aid by those suffering from an incurable disease wiping out multitudes in Europe – the plague. In 1706 near the Matthias Church, Buda erected a column in honor of the Holy Trinity to protect the city’s residents from the Black Plague. But the plague returned, so the council reasoned the first column had not been grand or tall enough. A more impressive column was built in 1709 including the above figure of Saint Sebastian. Bigger proved better according to the belief of the city’s inhabitants of the time, with Saint Sebastian receiving credit for keeping the disease at bay these centuries since.

An impressive equestrian statue featuring Saint Stephen (975-1038), the first king of Hungary, stands nearby. Saint Stephen guides the way to Fisherman’s Bastion, a fairytale-like overlook added to this perch above the Danube at the dawn of the 1900s after the extensive remodeling of Matthias Church. The landmark was built upon the bastion protected by the fishermen’s guild during the Middle Ages.

Ascending up the hill toward Buda Castle, one encounters a sculptural fountain lorded over by a statue of Matthias Corvinus (1443-1490) dressed for the hunt. The vizla dogs are the best part of this grouping, also completed in the early 1900s, but the woman on the lower right is the heart of the tableau. She represents a young peasant who supposedly fell in love with the king while he was hunting, not realizing he was king and, as such, unavailable, to her.

The Buda Castle is among the dropdead-gorgeous Budapest photo-ops viewed from the river below. Things look pretty palatial now, but the castle has had a life as tortuous as Saint Sebastian.

Matthias Fountain
Galeotto Marzio, the Italian court historian of King Matthias
Varkert Bazaar below and leading up to Buda Castle
statue outside Varkert Bazaar
Gate approaching Buda Castle
Buda Castle
Statue of Saint Stephen
Matthias Fountain
Statue of Saint Stephen backed by tower of Fisherman’s Bastion
Matthias Fountain (1904) in courtyard of Buda Castle
World War I exhibition at Varkert Bazaar
The raven, a symbol of King Matthias
King Matthias celebrating the hunt
Varkert Bazaar below Buda Castle
The tural, a mythological bird of prey symbolic of Hungary
Statue of Saint Stephen
Taming a wild horse, a statue originally in the Royal Riding School
Buda Castle
Statue of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736)
Holy Trinity pillar (1709) outside Matthias Church

King Bela IV (1206-1270) first built walls to fortify the hilltop against invasions by Mongols under the command of Batu Khan. King Sigismund (1368-1437), who at one point during rather tumultuous European times served as Holy Roman Emperor, expanded the royal residence into the largest Gothic palace of the Middle Ages to demonstrate his importance among the European leaders. Later, King Matthias Corvinus rebuilt the palace to reflect the trends of the early Renaissance.

In the 1500s, the Turks managed to conquer Buda and claim it as part of the Ottoman Empire. The extensive compound was damaged during the invasion, but palace maintenance was not among the priorities of the new rulers. Portions of the castle were relegated to serve as barracks, storage halls and stables. Several failed efforts by the Habsburgs to liberate Buda from Ottoman control inflicted more damage, but the great siege of 1686 proved the most devastating.

The Turks used a remaining tower on the grounds to store their supply of gunpowder. When bombarded, the explosion was reputed so huge as to have killed as many as 1,500 of the Turkish soldiers and created a massive wave on the Danube that swallowed more upon its banks. The Christian allies were successful in their quest, but the palace fared poorly. A new Baroque structure was begun but was partly destroyed by fire in 1723.

In order to pay tribute to Queen Maria Theresa (1717-1780), the only woman ruler during the centuries of the Habsburg dynasty, the Hungarian Chamber laid the foundation stone for a new palace on the queen’s birthday in 1749. Unfortunately, the nobles’ plans were grander than the depth of their pockets, and the project remained incomplete.

After visiting in 1764, Queen Maria Theresa allotted funds for finishing the project, despite having no desire to reside in Buda. She presented one wing to the Sisters of Loreto, but it was apparent the palace was too fancy for a nunnery. A university was established there, but later moved to the Pest side of the river. After Archduke Alexander Leopold (1772-1795) of Austria tapped it for use as his royal residence in 1791, the castle again became a bustling, fashionable center of society in Buda.

Efforts to keep the Austrians and Hungarians in harmony faltered. The Hungarian army revolted in May of 1849, with the Austrians holed up in the castle atop the hill. Heavy artillery fire was required to unseat them, and the resulting flames once again destroyed much of the palace.

Work once again commenced to make it grand enough to accommodate all of the archdukes, duchesses and officials connected to royalty. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, things settled down rather comfortably for a while under the rule of Emperor Franz Joseph (1830-1916). Buda and Pest became one city in 1873, and both benefitted during this period of peace and affluence from a considerable boom in building and urban improvements, including some of the enhancements above.

The Varkert Bazaar, or Royal Garden Pavilion, was built at the base of the Castle Hill on the river’s banks in the late 1800s, with elegant stairways leading upward to new gates. So many wings were needed to accommodate comings and goings, the castle outgrew its narrow hilltop footprint. A three-story substructure was constructed to provide a base for an addition on the west side. Royal stables and elaborate gardens contributed to the grounds, and the newly decorated palace was inaugurated in 1912.

The castle survived for several decades until World War II. The last stand of Axis forces during the siege of Budapest in 1944 and 1945 was Buda Castle. The heavy artillery fire and intense fighting required by the Soviet forces to evict them, left the palace in ruins once more.

Reconstruction Communist-style was different; modernization eliminated much of the former ornate ornamentation.

Restoration work continues on various wings of the castle even today, with Buda Palace now home to several major museums and a library.

Postcard from Budapest, Hungary: Home for Saint Stephen’s holy dexter

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The right hand of the blessed man was deservedly exempt from putrefaction because, always reflourishing from the flower of kindness, it was never empty from giving gifts to nourish the poor.

Bishop Hartvic, Life of King Stephen of Hungary, about 1116

Construction of the Basilica of Saint Stephen in Budapest took more than 50 years because the original dome over the facility designed to accommodate up to 8,500 worshippers completely collapsed in 1868. During the intervening years, the desired style evolved from neo-classical to neo-renaissance by the time the church was inaugurated by Emperor Franz Josef in 1906. The dome is the same height as that of Parliament, and no buildings in the historic center are allowed to tower above them.

Saint Stephen (975-1038) is celebrated as the first king of Hungary. His royal coronation was held on the first day of the second millennium, and the crown itself was a gift from Pope Sylvester II. King Stephen’s later sainthood was merited for his commitment to crush paganism in Hungary and for miracles credited to his right hand, the holy dexter.

The incorrupt hand was stolen at one point, recovered, hidden by nuns and finally returned and honored with a public procession in 1938 and enshrinement in a chapel in the basilica. The annual procession of the mummified dexter was ended abruptly by the communists in 1950. Since 1988, the church has been free to parade it through the streets annually on his day, August 20.

The crown presented to King Stephen served as the coronation crown for all subsequent kings of Hungary, but, like the dexter, spent some time in hiding. It and some of the royal jewels were spirited away for safekeeping in the United States during World War II. They remained locked in Fort Knox until returned to the Hungarians by an order of President Jimmy Carter in 1978. The crown and jewels are displayed in the House of Parliament.