Two museums of the Ráday collection
MúzeumCafé 12.
The Danube Region Calvinist Church pays its respects to the Ráday family, two of whose members are mainly responsible for its collections: Pál Ráday (1677–1733), the founder of the later famous book collection (between 1703 and 1711) and his son Gedeon Ráday (1713–1792), who extended the family collection to become central Europe’s most noted library. The Budapest Calvinist Academy of Theology purchased the library in 1861. The collection contains 6500 volumes and includes a number of bibliographic rarities. Library are unique and are supplemented by some extremely valuable paintings. The ecclesiastic art collection was founded in 1967 so that people could learn about the life of the Calvinist diocese. Relics (historic sources, objects of art, ethnographical items) connected to the life of the diocese have been deposited in the collection over the years. The museum exhibiting the life of the Calvinist congregations has been based in Kecskemét (1 Kálvin Square) since 1983. The World of the Bible Museum opened in Budapest (23 Ráday Street) in 1988. The museum of the Kecskemét Calvinists is situated in an old school building designed in neo-Classical style in the 1830s by József Hofrichter (1779–1835), the architect of the Reformed church in Budapest’s Kálvin Square. The permanent exhibition presents the religious life of the Danube region’s congregations from the beginning of the Reformation in Hungary. The lord’s table (with its wine containers, communion cups, special table cloths, glasses, plates and bowls), the pulpit, the bench fronts, the painted ceiling and collecting boxes all recall a church interior. The aim is to represent the congregations’ strong faith and liturgical practices, as well as to reflect their puritan yet still high-level cultural taste.