Statue of Flóris Rómer

Art historian, painter, university professor, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Grand Provost-Canon of Oradea, one of the initiators of Hungarian archaeology and monument protection, his "father" and a defining figure in our 19th-century historiography, Rómer Flóris Ferenc was born in Bratislava in 1815 on the street Lakatos, which was later named after him for a while. ; The National Archaeological and Anthropological Society started a fundraising campaign in the millennium year, in 1896, for a statue of Rómer to be erected in Bratislava. The city's representative body also supported the initiative financially. Sculptor Alajos Stróbl soon made the model of the bust, which decorated the study of the mayor of Bratislava for years. ; In June 1902, Tivadar Ortvay published an article in the Hungarian-language daily newspaper of Bratislava, Nyugatmagyarországi Hírado, in which he reported that together with the mayor of Bratislava, sculptor Alajos Stróbl and ministerial commissioner Gyula Forster, they had designated the location on Ferenciek Square where the statue, which was later cast in bronze, would be placed. ; After much back and forth, it took 5 years for the bronze statue to be handed over in Bratislava. It was inaugurated on August 25, 1907, on the occasion of the 34th general meeting of the Hungarian Doctors and Naturalists on Ferenciek Square. ; The statue faced the direction of Rómer's birthplace. In 1998, during the "reorganization" of the square, the statue was "hidden" in its current location, in a corner of the old town hall. During the relocation, the stone pedestal was also significantly shortened - obviously to "fit" its new, much narrower location than the previous one.