Matthias Corvinus House, Cluj-Napoca

The Matthias Corvinus House (Hungarian Mátyás király szülőháza) stands at 6 Matei Corvin Street, on the corner of Sextil Pușcariu Street, in the old centre of Cluj, about 200 metres north-west of St. Michael's Church on Unirii Square. It is considered the oldest house with an upper floor in the city and lies inside the first enclosure of the medieval citadel. The building was erected in the 15th century in Gothic style. In the 1440s it belonged to the merchant Jakab Méhffi, with whom Elizabeth Szilágyi, wife of John Hunyadi, used to stay. Their son Matthias, King of Hungary from 1458 to 1490, was born here in 1443. The east wing was added in the 16th century; the year 1578 appears on a door frame. Around 1740 the house was sold to the town and served in turn as a place of detention and a military hospital. In 1887 Emperor Franz Joseph visited it and made a donation for it to be marked; the bronze plaque, designed by Lajos Pákey and made by György Zala, was unveiled in 1889. From 1902 to 1935 it housed the museum of the Transylvanian Carpathian Society. The building was restored in 1940 to plans by the architect Károly Kós. Since 1950 the house has belonged to the University of Art and Design of Cluj-Napoca, which uses it for teaching, so it does not operate as a museum. From the street you can see the Gothic façade, with Renaissance elements added in the 16th century, the Hungarian commemorative plaque of 1889 and the Romanian and English plaque put up in 1996. The house fits easily into a walk through the historic centre, between Unirii Square and Museum Square. The building is a category A historic monument, LMI code CJ-II-m-A-07393, and is part of the urban ensemble "Historic centre of the city of Cluj". Did you know that King Matthias exempted the house where he was born from all taxes? By a charter of 28 September 1467 he freed the owners of the house and all their descendants from taxes, and the privilege was confirmed in 1649 by Prince George II Rákóczi. The exemption made the house very valuable and helped it survive almost unchanged. The 1889 plaque, however, gives a different birthday, 27 March 1443, rather than the date accepted by historians, 23 February 1443.