Buda Castle

The first royal residence on the Castle Hill was built by King Béla IV of Hungary between 1247 and 1265. It is uncertain whether it was situated on the southern tip of the hill or on the northern elevation, near the Kammerhof. The oldest part of the present-day palace was built in the 14th century by Stephen, Duke of Slavonia, who was the younger brother of King Louis I of Hungary. Only the foundations remain of the castle keep, which was known as Stephen's Tower (Budapest)' (Hungarian: István-torony). The Gothic palace of King Louis I was arranged around a narrow courtyard next to the keep.

In the last years of his reign Matthias Corvinus started construction of a new Renaissance palace on the eastern side of the Sigismund Courtyard, next to the Fresh Palace. The Matthias Palace remained unfinished because of the king's early death. The palace had a monumental red marble stairway in front of the façade. Matthias Corvinus was usually identified with Hercules by the humanists of his court; the bronze gates were decorated with panels depicting the deeds of Hercules, and a great bronze statue of the Greek hero welcomed the guests in the forecourt of the palace complex, where jousts were held.

The medieval palace was destroyed in the great siege of 1686 when Buda was captured by allied Christian forces. In 1686, two years after the unsuccessful siege of Buda, a renewed Western European Christian campaign was started to take the city. This time the Holy League's army was much larger, consisting of 65,000–100,000 men, including German, Hungarian, Croat, Dutch, English, Spanish, Czech, Italian, French, Burgundian, Danish and Swedish soldiers and other Europeans as volunteers, artillerymen and officers. The Turkish defenders consisted of 7,000 men.