Renaissance Hall of Rocks with Wine Fountains of Mathias

After the extinction of the Arpadians (1301), the native Hungarian royal dinasty, foreign kings succeeded to the Hungarian throne. Of these, the most famous was Sigismund from Luxemburg, achieved what had been deemed wellnight impossible before: in 1433, a Hungarian king was crowned Holy Roman Emperor, head of the Christian world.



Matthias Corvinus was the firs Hungarian king to acend the throne without any dynastic link. Machiavelli could have modelled the character of the Renaissance Prince, aiming alwasy at the highest, after him. With his Black Army he conquered Styria and Charintia, the hereditary provinces of the Luxemburg's, and in 1485 made Vienna the seat of his empire. Splendour and Renissance joy of life charakterised the court of this, the last great king of the medieval Hungarian empire. His memory was to become legendary, chrished by the people during the centuries of hardship that followed.