This town on the banks of the Danube is the seat of the Roman Catholic Primate of Hungary, the Archbishop of Esztergom. St Stephen (1000-1038) the first Hungarian king and the founder of the country, was born in the castle built here in 972.
The Cathedral (Szent István Square), the largest church in the country, is the emblem of the town and dominates Castle Hill. Rebuilt in the 19th century in Classical style, it houses the largest altar-piece in the world, painted on a single piece of canvas. Of unique interest is the only intact Hungarian Renaissance building, the Bakócz Chapel. Built of red marble at the beginning of the 16th century, it is 300 years older than the church itself. The Cathedral Treasury holds 400 items of goldsmith work, textiles, and the richest collection of Hungarian ecclesiastical treasures. Among its priceless possessions are horn goblets, chasubles, the Suky Chalice – recognised as a Gothic masterpiece – and the Matthias Calvary, a golden treasure inlaid with precious stones. In the crypt is the final resting place of Cardinal József Mindszenty. Honoured as a martyr, his tomb has become a place of pilgrimage.
The royal oratory, the frescoed castle chapel and the rose-window are in the neighbourhood of the Basilica and recall the Romanesque royal palace. The royal castle is from the Árpád era and its restored halls contain the exhibits of the Castle Museum (1 Szent István Square), showing the history of the Castle of Esztergom. The head of the Hungarian Catholic Church lives in the Primate's Palace (2 Berényi Zs. Street), where the most valuable regional collection in Hungary, the Christian Museum, is also to be found. Surviving treasures of medieval Hungarian art are preserved here: the Calvary altar painted in 1427 and the Lord’s Coffin of Garamszentbenedek. There are many masterpieces in the exceptionally rich foreign material, from early Renaissance Italian paintings to modern ecclesiastical pieces.