Károlyi Palace

The Károlyi Palace is a single‑storey classicist building in Budapest’s Inner City, at 16 Károlyi Street. The present palace was built by György Károlyi in the 1830s and currently houses the Petőfi Literary Museum (PIM). The Károlyi Garden originally belonging to the palace for a long time was physically separated from the palace by a fence and gates and functioned as a separate public park. As part of the 2021–22 renovation of the palace, the Károlyi Garden was opened together with the palace courtyard, so it is freely accessible during the day (in the evenings both the Károlyi Garden and the PIM are closed).

Location

The Károlyi Palace stands in today’s 5th district of Budapest, i.e. the Inner City. It is bounded on the west by Károlyi Street, on the north by Ferenczy Street, on the east by the Károlyi Garden, and on the south by Henszlmann Street, with its entrance from Károlyi Street. Its immediate surroundings have changed several times over the centuries. The area has always belonged to the city of Pest. When the city was fortified in the 15th century, it already lay within the walls, halfway between the Hatvani Gate (now Astoria) and the Kecskeméti Gate (now the north side of Kálvin Square), separated from the walls only by today’s Magyar Street.

The names of the streets surrounding the plot have been changed several times. On the 1758 city map the area is still listed as Wilfersheimb’s plot, although the owner of the plot was already Ferenc Barkóczy, bishop of Eger. Magyar Street bears the names Szabó‑Rondella Street and also the name towards the Kecskeméti Gate. Henszlmann Street did not yet exist; on the right side of the plot, i.e. to the south, the Harruckern plot is visible. To the west the present Károlyi Street can be seen, which was then called Uri Street, and to the left, i.e. to the north, today’s Ferenczy Street had two names, Uj Street and Wilfersheimi Street.

On the hydrographic map of the built-up areas of Pest, Buda and Óbuda from 1833, the Károlyi Palace and garden are clearly visible. According to the German-language map from 1854, today’s Ferenczy Street was called Zucker Gasse, i.e., Sugar Street, and the Harruckern Palace received a new name after its new owners: it became the Wenckheim Palace, and it also had a garden, like the Károlyi Palace, although its garden was about half the size.

Between 1867 and 1872 a cadastral map series of Pest was produced, later also showing the changes between 1872 and 1920. Here the Wenckheim Palace and its garden, which bounded the Károlyi Palace to the south, still exist, and the name of Ferenczy Street is Czukor utcza. On an 1878 map the name Sugar Street is changed to Count Károlyi Street.

On the Budapest administrative map series from 1908 the present Henszlmann Street already appears, which was then called Kaplony Street. Kaplony Street was built on the site of the demolished Wenckheim Palace and its garden, and also opened on the sites of demolished tenement houses.

Access

Because of its excellent central location, the Károlyi Palace is easily reachable on foot, by car and by public transport. Using public transport, based on the March 2023 schedules, it can be reached in a 5–10 minute walk from Kálvin Square (M3 and M4 metro lines and M3 metro replacement bus, tram 47/48/49, bus 15, trolleybuses 72/83); also on foot from Ferenciek Square (M3 metro, buses 5/7/8E/15/133E) or from Astoria (M2 metro, M3 metro replacement bus, trams 47/48/49, bus 9). At University Square, in front of the ELTE Faculty of Law, a column dampens traffic. Directly in front of the palace there is also a MOL Bubi bicycle station.

Middle Ages

During the Second World War a square water tank was begun to be built in the middle of the palace garden, intended for aeronautical use. During the works a skeleton was discovered, after which the Archaeological and Excavation Institute also monitored the work, and they managed to find numerous finds that originated from a cemetery that once existed on the garden site. From the graves four male, one female and two child skeletons were recovered, more or less intact. Smaller objects also emerged from the skeletons: belt buckles, a bronze ring, a necklace and a coin. Because of the location of the finds, further graves were expected, but the war situation forced the rapid termination of the water tank excavation. The side length of the tank was 18.5 metres, and the graves were found at an average depth of 2 metres. Due to the poor finds the exact date of the cemetery could not be determined. The recovered coin bore the inscription Fortuna Redux, with on the reverse a right‑facing imperial portrait with a wreath. In 11th‑century graves it was common to use old Roman coins as grave goods, and the other finds from the graves show similarity to other burial sites, such as Pilin‑Simán Hill or the Demkó Hill and Maros Hill cemeteries near Székesfehérvár. Since these date to the 11th century, it is likely that the Károlyi‑garden graves also belong to the early Árpád period, indicating that the contemporary residents of Pest lived in poverty and did not belong to the ruling clans.

During the construction of the irrigation pool, artifacts were also uncovered from the drainage channel, including a polygonal column base that may have been placed there in the 14th century. A medieval waste pit filled with shards also emerged. After the war, in 1946 the irrigation pool was filled with rubble from the demolished houses in the vicinity, and the City Horticulture Department ordered that the pool be converted into a sand playground. The required sand was extracted from an area 10.7 m from the pool, where a 6×4 m pit was dug for this purpose. Artifacts were also found in this pit, a female and a newborn infant skeleton buried with her. During the works a local resident informed the archaeologists that at the corner of the garden enclosed by Károlyi and Magyar streets, a small yellow house stood in the 1930s, and that bones were also found when it was demolished. Based on this it can be assumed that the Árpád‑period cemetery extended over at least a quarter of the present garden. During the sand extraction further medieval and Ottoman-era rubbish pits were discovered.