Sala Terrena, Museum and Treasury [antikvár]

"The great moments in history are engraved in the stones oftowns." (Ervenat)1t is the appraisement of our predecessors' intellectuality and greatness to have had the very first "museum of the antiquities" in Szombathely in 1784 among the museums in Hungary, consequently the Sala Terrena, the ceremóniái hall on the ground floor of the Episcopal Palace, can alsó be considered as the oldest museum or pub-lic collection of the country.The stone monuments of SavariaThe particularly important objects and art treasures of the Hungarians were first collected by royal rulers from the 14th century in Hungary. The precious art and ancient stone collection of King Matthias (*1443, 1445-1490) is well-known, and as a matter of fact, he was the first ruler, who realised the importance of the antique stone remains of Colonia Claudia Savaria during his stay in Szombathely in 1463, according to legend. When the King saw the Román stone remains lying scattered all around the city and its area, he had them collected and built into the walls of the medieval castle so that they and the Latin scripts engraved in them could be clearly seen. During the following centuries a lot of people paid a visit to the city, not only to see this sight: archaeologists, historians, clergy and secular dignitaries or simple travellers; most of whom wrote a review of the Román stone remains they had seen in the castle of Szombathely mostly in their travel diaries or in somé cases in their scientific pieces. According to legend, the tomb of Ovid, one of the most popular poets in the Middle Ages, was alsó found in Savaria at the beginning of the 16th century. The English travellers came to know this and they were interested to come to the city in order to see the tomb supposing it was Ovid's. However, the existence of the Ovid tomb still has not been proven. Matthias Bél, the great historiographer, described the stones seen in the castle in a meticulous way in his manuscript in 1730: there is a rectangular black stone in the left wall of the gate in the outer castle, its length is more than 9, and width is more than 4 feet. In the wall on the left at the entrances of the inner gate the white stone is a bit narrower than the long one and there are several stones with scripts on them at he entrance of the inner castle.