The most renowned house in the town centre was built in the 16th century in Renaissance style. It was originally a single-storey edifice to which another floor was added in the 1560s. On the ground floor there were once shops, while upstairs there were residential units. The building received its name after the Renaissance technique, originating from northern Italy, applied on the facade of the house. When using this technique, there are two layers of plaster applied on the wall surface, then one of them is removed to reveal a specific pattern “scratched” into the wall.
The Latin inscription on the facade dates back to the 17th century; it is an excerpt from Paul the Apostle’s Epistle to the Romans. “It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy, 1668.” This was György Rákóczi’s (Transylvania’s reigning prince) motto; he usually closed his letters written to his son with this quotation. The sgraffito house has been renovated a number of times and one such occasion revealed a late Renaissance mural on the ceiling, assumed to have been painted in the 17th century. The theme of the fresco is Lazarus’ supper with the Lord. Today the building serves as the research centre and library of the Institute of Advanced Studies (iASK)
The names of the tenants in the Sgraffito house have been recorded since the early 18th century. In 1711, a local surgeon, István Salamon purchased the house and a good fifty years later (in 1765) he passed it on to a fellow physicist, Mátyás Haasz. The next owner, Anton Bauman, was also a surgeon who acquired the building by marrying into the Haasz family. Following her husband’s death, Anna Haasz was registered as the taxpayer after the building, then her son featured on the list for a few years. Despite the family’s affluence, they had to let out some of the rooms for tenants, mostly tradesmen among which we could find glaziers, painters, basket-weavers, lead casters, tailors, shoemakers, fashion salesmen and day labourers.
The most famous tenant of the building in the 19th century was András Schlamatinger who graduated from the University of Law in 1828. At first, he worked at the Transdanubian Regional Court and later became a more prominent local public figure. In 1833, he was granted town citizenship; in 1835 he was promoted to be a town prosecutor and the constituency’s notary. In 1843, he was appointed as a councillor, and in 1846 as major of the local civil guard. He also acted as temporary mayor of the town; later as a judge for the nobility (“noble judge”) in Kőszeg’s smaller region. From 1861 he acted as chief noble judge, later as the deputy head of the administrative district referred as deputy sheriff. Although he was not a member of a nobility, he acted a governor of the county for six months and was granted the title of ‘royal councillor’ for his services to the monarch. In 1867, he retired but went on to work as a board member and, between 1874 and 1878, as president of Kőszeg’s Savings Bank.
András Schlamatinger sold the house in 1874 and, following the post-war inflation and the great depression in 1929, the building was auctioned. It was bought by the Savings Bank and remained in the bank’s ownership until it was nationalised in 1949. In 1948, it briefly served as a police station operating with five officers.
