Former Károlyi Mansion, Budapest District VIII

The former Károlyi mansion in Budapest's eighth district traces its plot back to the period after Ottoman rule, passing through the Wilfersheim and Barkóczy families before the Károlyi family acquired the property in 1768. Its present neoclassical appearance largely dates from a major rebuilding carried out between 1832 and 1847 under Count György Károlyi, who added a grand staircase, modern stables and a library and had the interiors richly decorated. Under Károlyi's secretary László Bártfay, who moved into the mansion after Pest's great flood of 1838, the house became home to one of the most important literary salons of Hungary's Reform Era, hosting writers and politicians such as Mihály Vörösmarty, Ferenc Kölcsey and Lajos Batthyány. The mansion's rebuilding helped set a precedent for the aristocratic palaces that later filled the surrounding Palace Quarter, and the building has since been renovated for modern institutional and student use.