Esztergom Basilica
Hungary's largest church, a Neoclassical cathedral on Castle Hill above the Danube.
The Primatial Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary Assumed Into Heaven and St Adalbert stands on Castle Hill at the Danube bend, on the site of a medieval cathedral destroyed during the Ottoman wars. Building began in 1822 to designs by Pál Kühnel and János Packh; József Hild took over in 1838 and gave the church its final Neoclassical form, with a colonnaded portico and a drum-and-dome crossing. It was consecrated in 1856 at a ceremony for which Franz Liszt composed his Esztergom Mass, and was completed in 1869.
At roughly 118 metres long and 100 metres to the top of the dome, it is the largest church in Hungary and the seat of the country's Catholic primate. Inside, the altarpiece painted by Michelangelo Grigoletti is among the largest single-canvas paintings anywhere. The red marble Bakócz Chapel, carved in Italian Renaissance style in 1506, was dismantled and rebuilt inside the new church. Visitors can also enter the crypt, the treasury of liturgical goldsmiths' work and the dome lookout, which gives views over the Danube into Slovakia.
Highlights
- Dome lookout with views across the Danube bend
- Bakócz Chapel, a 1506 red marble Renaissance survival
- Grigoletti's vast Assumption altarpiece
- Crypt and treasury of medieval and Baroque church plate
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