Double display about the Matthias Church at the Budapest History Museum’s Castle Museum and the Church of Our Lady

MúzeumCafé 48.

The Matthias Church is simultaneously one of the most well-known listed monuments in Budapest, the parish church of the Buda Castle District, one of the country’s most important ecclesiastical buildings and the site of many noted events in Hungarian history. Restoration undertaken between 2004 and 2013 required new research touching on both the building’s history and its technical condition. New circumstances were revealed and results obtained which justified the staging of a new, comprehensive exhibition. The Budapest History Museum and the Buda Castle Chief Parish of Our Lady worked closely together to create the exhibition in two separate locations. The exhibition in the museum concentrates on its own works of art and those of the parish, while those of the church are presented primarily by the building itself, its furnishings and contents, including Schulek’s maquette found in fragments in the Matthias tower in 2004 would be worth exhibiting. Since the church has always been more than just a simple parish church, both the exhibition and the catalogue present its wider context. Events of national importance are described, the rich musical life of the church is illustrated, as is the work of its priests. The comprehensive catalogue has 776 pages and has involved the work of 64 authors. The two exhibitions display a remarkably wide range of items, including architectural plans, paintings, statues, vestments, charters, sheet music, photographs, films, goldsmiths’ works, ceramics and graphic art, as well as the maquette.