Online Paintings: The Budapest

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Budapest

Posted by Victoria Brandon at 4:13 AM

The history of Budapest began with Aquincum, originally a Celtic settlement that became the Roman capital of Lower Pannonia. Hungarians arrived in the territory in the 9th century. Their first settlement was pillaged by the Mongols in 1241-42. The re-established town became one of the centers of Renaissance humanist culture in the 15th century. Following the Battle of Mohacs and nearly 150 years of Ottoman rule, development of the region entered a fresh age of prosperity in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Budapest became a global city after the 1873 unification.

It also became the second capital of Austria-Hungary, an excellent power that dissolved in 1918. Budapest was the focal point of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, Operation Panzerfaust in 1944, the Battle of Budapest of 1945, and also the Revolution of 1956.

The first settlement on the territory of Budapest was built by Celts before 1 AD. It was later occupied by the Romans. The Roman settlement - Aquincum - became the main city of Lower Pannonia in 106 AD. The Romans constructed roads, amphitheaters, baths and houses with heated floors during this fortified military camp.

The peace treaty of 829 added Pannonia to Bulgaria due to the victory of Bulgarian army of Omurtag over Holy Roman Empire of Louis the Pious. Budapest arose out of two Bulgarian military frontier fortresses Buda and Pest, situated on the two banks of Danube. Hungarians led by Arpad settled in the territory at the end of the 9th century, and a century later officially founded the Kingdom of Hungary. Research places the probable residence of the Arpads as an early place of central power close to what became Budapest.

The Tatar invasion in the 13th century quickly proved that defence is difficult on a plain. King Bella IV of Hungary thus ordered the construction of reinforced stone walls around the towns and set his own royal palace on the top of the protecting hills of Buda. In 1361 it became the capital of Hungary.

The cultural role of Buda was particularly significant throughout the reign of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. The Italian Renaissance had an excellent influence on the city. His library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana, was Europe's greatest collection of historical chronicles and philosophic and scientific works in the 15th century, and second only in size to the Vatican Library.

After the foundation of the first Hungarian university in Pecs in 1367, the second one was established in Obuda in 1395. The first Hungarian book was printed in Buda in 1473. Buda had about 5,000 inhabitants around 1500