The remains of the oldest Hungarian Royal Palace (Királyi palota) are situated on the southern promontory of Castle Hill, to the left of the Cathedral. It was reputed to have been built under Grand Duke Géza in the 10th and 11th C, and towards the end of the 12th C. King Béla III ordered that a two-story west wing and a residential tower at the southern end should be added, and that it should be lavishly furnished. Later renovations were carried out in Renaissance style by the archbishops of Esztergom, who were the sole residents here after 1256. The Palace was sacked and filled with rubble during the Turkish siege; some of it was uncovered during excavations in the 1930s and 1960s, and the major rooms have now been opened up as museum.
Tour
The first rooms contain remains of the walls of St Adalbert's Church (11th/12th C), which once stood near the Palace, as well as a model of its magnificent Romanesque doorway, the "Porta speciosa", which has been frequently copied (for example, in the monastery church at Pannonhalma). The visitor will then enter the long chamber which was once a casemate, which now houses the Lapidarium with some original carved stonework from the medieval castle.
In the 19th C it was believed that the groin-vaulted room at the southwest end of the Palace was where King Stephen I was born. The marble central pillar and the carved niche with twin windows are 19th C additions, made when the room was converted to a chapel. A staircase leads to the upper floor and a Romanesque room with two beautiful portals, the larger of which leads to the János Vitéz Room beyond, which is divided into two by a wall. In the second half of the 15th C János Vitéz, the eminent humanist, archbishop and tutor of King Matthias, had this, his study, painted with a fresco cycle modeled on some found in Italian Renaissance palaces, and which included the horoscope of the person who commissioned the frescos and a triumphant procession of heavenly bodies (fragments can still be seen on the arch and on the dividing wall) as well as some beautifully-restored female figures between the painted arcades - personifications of the four cardinal virtues of Prudentia (Wisdom; holding a mirror as a symbol of self-knowledge), Temperantia (Temperance), Fortitudo (Fortitude; holding a cudgel) and Justitia (Justice; with scales and a sword). It seems probable that Vitéz commissioned Italian artists from the Florentine circle led by Filippino Lippi, who also worked at the court of King Matthias.
From the János Vitéz Room a narrow medieval staircase leads back down to the ground floor. Here the foundations of a round palatinate chapel from the oldest building (10th/11th C) have been unearthed.
After having returned to the János Vitéz Room, the visitor should take the narrow corridor to the magnificent Castle Chapel.
Not only is the Castle Chapel of Esztergom Palace one of the pinnacles of ecclesiastical art in Esztergom, it is also one of the most beautiful of all the Hungarian buildings which mark the transition from Romanesque to Gothic. Above all, this is the result of extremely careful reconstruction work, in which the concealed sections of the original walls were incorporated into modern brickwork in such a way that they stand out clearly yet subtly, thus preserving the original impression of space.
Above a plain and simple base - an almost square main nave, with a semi-circular apse joining it at the east end - rises a place of prayer which originally was luxuriously appointed with sculptures and paintings and is spanned by a high groin-vaulted roof. Two doorways with Norman dog-tooth decoration and superbly carved capitals lead to side chapels (the south one being also the entrance to the chapel itself). On the west side the wall above the doorway has a beautiful rose-window, while the south and north walls are broken up by means of niches with seats. The portraits above the niches were commissioned by Archbishop Csanád Telegdi C 1340. The Norman double-pillars in the apse are an early indication of the Gothic style to come; the Romanesque wall on which they stand is disintegrating. In the 1930s some authorities suggested that two of the male figures on the capitals (one with a beard and one without) were meant to be likenesses of the French master-builder and his assistant, but since then further research has led to the conclusion that they are more likely to be medieval representations of Good and Evil. The walls of the Chapel were originally almost completely covered with paintings, but now only a few fragments in the choir remain.
The west front of the Castle Chapel has also been restored. From the small square in front of it one door led into the Chapel, the other into the Palace.
In the south and west of the Royal Palace remains of the walls of 14th and 15th C defensive structures have been preserved, such as the Leopold Bastion (Lipótbástya) on the south side and the castle gate with pipes carrying drinking water on the Danube side
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