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This introduction is the edited version of the opening speech delivered at the scientific conference and exhibition commemorating the bicentenary of Miklós Ybl's birth (1814-1891). As the first representative of the professional architect emancipated from the guild organization, Ybl still enjoys a quasi symbolic prestige in the Hungarian architectural community. Instead of becoming a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, he owed his success and great influence - upon determining the stylistic character of the Hungarian capital, Budapest from 1873, for example - to the confidence placed in him by the liberal aristocrats who played a leading role in the management of the scholarly institution. Since in the early 20th century the historicism of renaissance inspiration which he represented was discarded as eclectic academism, and in the decades of socialist realism the style was condemned for class-struggle reasons, it was only in the past two or three decades that the positive evaluation of the principle of style choice and pluralism of styles could gain ground. The paper stresses the continuity of neo-classicism and historicism reviving the gothic and the Romanesque styles as well as the neo-renaissance mode in the tradition of the academic theory of architecture. It does not deny the importance of function but reckons with an iconological interpretation of function which is contradictory to 20th century functionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the 16th- and 17th-century history of portraits and portrait painting in the kingdom of Hungary. The importance of patronage for artists of the time including Elias Widemann is described, portraits of members of the Habsburg monarchy are analyzed, and the social significance of portraits in the homes of commoners and nobles is compared. Iconography in portraits of the time is discussed.