The Beggar's House
Building, structure
The one-story, historicizing, eclectic house, located in a closed row of buildings, N of the St. Elizabeth Cathedral, in the E wall of the main square, was built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, in 1898. The most spectacular decorations of the building are the plastic plaster decorations that adorn the frames of the doors and windows and the consoles of the first-floor balcony, forming griffins, lion heads, cornucopias and other figures, as well as the picture field formed in the middle above the row of windows on the first floor, closed with an arched, volute cornice. Of the allegorical figures featured in the fresco, the one on the far right rests his hand on a shield decorated with the coat of arms of Košice. However, the most famous landmark of the building is the statue standing at the top of the highly ornate, articulated tympanum crowning the facade. The statue of the beggar bowing and taking off his hat is associated with a well-known urban legend, according to which, at the end of the 19th century, a beggar from Košice managed to collect enough money to build this house, to the astonishment of his contemporaries. He decorated his house with this statue as a reminder of the vicissitudes of life and fortune. Today, a smaller version of this statue is also awarded as a prize at the annual Košice television film festival.