when the turks occupied asia minor and started invading europe, hungarian nobility started fleeing north, into present-day slovakia, then northern hungary. pozsony (german: pressburg or preßburg) (since 1918 bratislava) became the capital city of hungary. after the city of esztergom was captured, the seat of the esztergom archbishop (highest ranking hungarian church official at that time) had to be moved. at first, he lived in the building of his predecessors at the place of today's primate's palace in the city center. the old gothic residence, however, despite its many reconstructions failed to provide the comfort the archbishop was accustomed to. in spite of hungary being decimated by the turks, the nobility started to emulate the foreign custom of building summer palaces in the countryside.