Church of Saint Mary Magdalene

This guide to the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Budapest traces its tower from King Béla IV's 1240s hilltop fortification through Ottoman rule, when the church became a mosque and Turkish cannons stood in this very tower, to the Habsburg siege of 1686. It follows the Franciscan monks who rebuilt it in Baroque style, grand enough that Emperor Francis I was crowned king of Hungary inside its walls in 1792, and the shelling it endured in the 1944-45 siege of Budapest. Stand at the base of the tower, the only part of the medieval church still standing, while you listen.