Abstract:
It is a well-known fact that – because of the agitated history of this region – there are just a few buildings conserved in their original form to the present day. The author – based on a conscription from 1760, preserved in the archive of the Transsylvanian Museum Society – presents a destroyed mansion, the one built in Mezőpanit between 1670-1673, probably by Boldizsár Macskási, an influential politician of the Apafi-period. After his death the mansion remained in the possession of the Macskási family for a while, as the inscription preserved on the northern wall mentions the restaurations made by Krisztina Macskási and her husband István Bethlen around the year 1728. Soon after this it became the heritage of the Bethlen and Kornis families. After the presentation of the supposed possessors of the mansion, the author tries to manage an imaginary reconstruction of the building, based on the dates offer the conscription. Originally the manor-house had two levels. On the ground-floor the scribes have found five rooms and a vault, on the first floor the prominent portico (with boarded ceiling and an inscription which mentions the names of the builders and the year 1673), the the so-called „palace”, and two other rooms. The dimensions of this building, the use of the boarded ceiling as a decoration shows that the mansion of the Macskási’s from Mezőpanit was a significant example of the Transsylvanian late-renaissance architecture.
