The temporary exhibition titled Splendor and Devotion – The Life and Era of Bishop Ferenc Zichy of Győr opened to the public on October 7, 2024, as a result of the collaboration between the Collection Center of the Diocese of Győr and the Rómer Flóris Art and History Museum. The large audience gathered in the ornate hall of the Collection Center’s library, where Vicar General Dr. Ferenc Reisner and Mayor of Győr Bence Pintér welcomed them. The exhibition was officially opened by Professor István Fazekas, a professor at ELTE Faculty of Humanities, who, in his lecture, highlighted the main stages of Bishop Zichy’s life. He expressed his hope that the exhibition would help elevate the memory of Bishop Zichy to its rightful place among the greatest Baroque patron bishops in Hungary.
One of the exhibition's curators, Gábor Nemes, is a research fellow with the Fraknói Research Group, and the exhibition’s text panels were co-authored by Róbert Oláh, assistant research fellow in the same group. The exhibition presents the life, four-decade episcopal service (1743–1783), and era of Count Ferenc Zichy (1701–1783), Győr’s most prominent Baroque bishop. The exhibition, housed in the temporary exhibition hall of the Collection Center of the Diocese of Győr, is enriched by rarely seen, valuable artifacts and documents from the collections of the Hungarian National Museum, the National Széchényi Library, the National Archives of Hungary, and the University Library.
At the end of the evening, the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra, together with the Philharmonia Chor Wien, performed Benedek Istvánffy's St. Dorothy Mass, written in 1774 for Zichy’s golden jubilee, in the cathedral. The exhibition will remain open until September 30, 2025, at the Collection Center of the Diocese of Győr (9021 Győr, Gutenberg Square 2).
