The Hentzel house was one of the specific Renaissance architecture residential houses in Cluj. It was located on the west side of Podului Street (today Regele Ferdinand Street no. 21). The building was built in the former defensive moat of the Old Castle at the beginning of the 16th century, following the completion of the construction of the town’s second fortified enclosure, when the walls of the Old Castle lost their defensive role. The building was rebuilt in the Renaissance style between 1584-1586 by Blasius Hentzel, who decorated it with a series of frames marked with the BHR monogram (Blasius Hentzel Rivulinus, translated “Blasius Hentzel of Baia Mare”). One of the portal frames was made according to the stonecutter’s mark by the sons of the famous Cluj stonemason János Szécsi Seres. The building was probably demolished at the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century, and most of the frames were transported and built into the façades of the villa belonging to the town’s chief architect of the period, Lajos Pákei, at Republicii Street no. 37. When the building was renovated in 1936, two of the above portal frames were transported to the lapidarium of the Institute of Classical Studies.
(Illustration) The carriage gate of the building, drawing by Lajos Pákei, late 19th century