Széchenyi tér, Gyor

Dominating the square is the Early Baroque former Jesuit Church, built in 1634-41, the work of the Florentine architect Baccio del Bianco (1604-41). He modeled the single-aisled church on the Jesuit church of Il Gesù in Rome, the first Baroque church to be built anywhere in the world. Originally the relatively plain façade had no towers - these were added by Martin Witwer in 1726. The niches contain statues of St John Nepomuk, St John the Evangelist, St Andrew and St Francis of Borgia; above the entrance is one of the Madonna and in the tympanum the founder of the order, St Ignatius Loyola.The superb frescos which decorate the church were painted in 1744 by the Austrian artist Paul Troger. He was also responsible for the Transfiguration of St Ignatius Loyola which can be seen on the high altar. Mention must also be made of the statues of saints by Johann Josef Rössler from Vienna, and the lavishly decorated pulpit by Ludwig Gode from Bratislava.

The Gyor Municipal Museum is housed in the 1741 Baroque "abbot's house". The Benedictine abbot of Pannonhalma had several medieval houses converted into a palace for himself; the present banqueting hall was once the refectory, The beautiful Rococo oriel window above the door is framed by sculptures of St Benedict and King Stephen. The ceiling frescos by Stephan Schaller (1708-79) from Gyor depict scenes from the legend of the founding of Pannonhalma. The museum, named after János Xantus, a 19th C Hungarian naturalist, contains local history, ethnographic, natural history and applied art collections, as well as coins, pictures, etc.

St Ignatius' Church forms a part of the Baroque abbey of Bencés rendház, which was built by the Jesuits and, following the dissolution of their order in 1773, passed to the Benedictines in 1802; the latter installed a grammar school here. The vaulted ground floor, which is decorated with ceiling frescos and stucco work, was used by the Jesuits for the sale of medicines as early as the 17th C, and has now been made into a Museum of Medicine.

The late 17th C Baroque house, Iron Stump House was once the residence of the town's magistrates. It takes its name from a tree-trunk which in 1833 a timber merchant drove nails and used as his shop sign. After the fashion of the "Stock im Eisen" (Iron Trunk) in Vienna, itinerant journeymen and apprentices used to carve their initials on it.

In the 1580s several buildings grouped on the west corner of Széchenyi tér were made into a Baroque mansion for the Italian merchant Angarano. In 1770 Gábor Count Eszterházy had it rebuilt, and today its most striking features include the lattice-work arch over the door and the oriel window with its wrought-iron grille.