The Pásztó Museum
MúzeumCafé 4.
Pásztó is a small town in the Zagyva valley, between Hatvan and Salgótarján. Nearby are the western Mátra and the eastern Cserhát Hills, the remains of volcanoes silent for ten million years, the fossilized remains of marine life from the Miocene period 11-20 million years ago and the loess at the foot of the hills which hides bones of ice-age mammoths, woolly rhinoceros and reindeer. Natural oak and beech forests provide a home for hundreds of flora and fauna species.
Pásztó’s history stretches back at least 900 years. Benedictine monks came in the 12th century, followed by the Cistercians. It was then that the abbey and the parish church were built. In April 1407 King Sigismund endowed the settlement with a town charter.
Pásztó boasts of prominent personalities – mathematician and astronomer Pál Tittel, musicologist and music teacher Benjamin Rajeczky, the last prior of the Cistercian monastery and graphic artist Kálmán Csohány, film director István Gaál and, from among the living, mention can be made of archeologist Ilona Valter. Thanks to her the foundations of the early medieval abbey, later the hexagonal chapel and the glass-works were revealed. It was she who established that the town’s most well-known listed building, a schoolmaster’s house, was an authentic 15th-century dwelling. The museum’s Palóc Film Archive collects films relating to the Palóc region and those made by artists with roots in the region. Benjamin Rajeczky’s private library held in the museum is priceless.
Besides holding exhibitions and conducting palaeontological research, the museum has a film-making studio and it engages in educational activity.