Wherever we hear the word “fideicommissum” there usually appears in our mind the vision of a huge real property – as the famous Hungarian authors of the 19th century emphasized it – with a big country house, where the owner was usually resting on the porch smoking his pipe, with his dog nearby his legs, and the creaking of the well sweep was the only noise that could be heard near and far in the immense sweltering heat. This is the vision of a presently bygone world, in which the fideicommissum represented the controversial institution with its inalienable nature.

The legal authors of the 19th century seem to adopt a view that this legal institution should be erased from the legal system for the benefit of the enlightened political and legal changes. They believed that the foundation of a fideicommissum reduced the possibility of acquiring credits and prevented the making of investments in the fideicommissum property since the possessor of the fideicommissum could not be sure that by his death his family could get at least the amount of the investment back. But it is also true that without this legal institution most of our present museums would be poorer. These collections and treasures that now form part of the permanent collection of the Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts, or the National Gallery in Budapest were preserved due to the fideicommissa created by Hungarian nobles living in the 17th through 18th centuries.