Medieval holdings of Budapest museums

I often find myself trying to explain the system of Budapest's major art museums to foreigners. Although it is a clear system, it can still be confusing at times. For example, you can find important medieval artworks in all major museums of the capital. In this post, I will give a brief overview of the system, and list the most important medieval holdings of Budapest museums.

1. Hungarian National Museum (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum)

This is Hungary's oldest public museum, founded in 1802. The present building of the museum, designed by Mihály Pollack, opened in 1847. Originally, all kinds of collections were housed here, a lot of which formed the basis of later museums. Today, it is basically a museum dedicated to the history of Hungary. The museum houses a large number of medieval objects from the territory of historic and modern Hungary. Various objects - including stone carvings, pottery, etc. - are held in the Archaeological Department and are on view in the Medieval Lapidary. Departments of the Historical Repository hold all kinds of medieval objects - furniture, textiles, weapons and ceramics. Of particular note is the Collection of Metalwork, with the best selection of Hungarian goldsmith works. Highlights of these collections are on view in the permanent exhibition. Until 2000, the Coronation regalia were kept here, too - today only the Coronation mantle remains in the Museum. The museum has a useful website, with lot of English language content - although not every page is translated from Hungarian. Start browsing here.

2. Museum of Applied Arts (Iparművészeti Múzeum)

Founded in 1872 and modeled after the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Applied Arts was the second major public museum in Hungary. It is housed in an Art Nouveau building designed by Ödön Lechner, opened in 1896. The collections of the museum include all fields of decorative arts - metalwork, furniture, ivories, textiles, ceramics. This is the only major national museum in Hungary where objects of Hungarian origin are side-by-side with other European works. When it comes to medieval objects, the collection is stronger in general European art (most Hungarian objects can be found in the National Museum). Particular highlights include medieval ivories, important goldsmith works from the Esterházy-treasury, chasubles and other medieval textiles, etc. Some of the highlights are on view in the permament exhibition of the museum, but the website only provides information on them in Hungarian. You can still browse the collection and picture galleries of highlights here. The museum's permanent exhibition of the history of furniture is located in the Nagytétény mansion on the outskirts of Budapest, and includes a number of medieval and renaissance objects.

3. Museum of Fine Arts (Szépművészeti Múzeum)

Officially founded in 1896, the Museum of Fine Art is based on the Esterházy-collection, purchased by the Hungarian state in 1871, and on numerous other acquisitions carried out during the last decades of the 19th century. The main building of the museum opened in 1906. The museum is basically dedicated to monuments of western art, including Egyptian and ancient art, stretching all the way to the present day. Focus is on paintings, drawings and sculpture (for other fields, see the Museum of Applied Arts above). Hungarian works have been transferred to the Hungarian National Gallery (see below). In terms of medieval art, The Collection of Old Master Paintings is particularly strong in Italian Trecento works as well as German/Austrian Late Gothic paintings. There are a number of outstanding medieval drawings in the collection as well, and there is a large collection of medieval sculpture - the latter presently not on view. For information and highlights, visit the website of the museum. In 2006, the Museum of Fine Arts organized and housed the great international exhibition dedicated to Emperor Sigismund.

4. Hungarian National Gallery (Nemzeti Galéria)

The National Gallery was created in 1957, with the intention of providing a separate museum dedicated to Hungarian art. It is primarily based on material transferred from the Museum of Fine Arts. When the new museum was transferred to its present building - in the former royal palace of Buda - the Old Hungarian Collection was also transferred there. This is a rich repository of Hungarian medieval art, consisting of medieval stone carvings and sculpture, panel paintings and a large number of complete altarpieces. The collections can be browsed on the website of the museum.

5. Budapest History Museum (Budapesti Történeti Museum)

The main site of this museum  - the Castle Museum - is also located in the building of the former royal palace of Buda (this site opened in 1967). Lower levels of the museum incorporate the remains of the medieval royal palace. The museum is an archaeological and historical collection - similar to the Hungarian National Museum - focusing on the territory of Budapest. As the Buda side of present-day Budapest was the medieval seat of Hungarian kings, the museum is particularly rich in medieval objects, most of them archaeological finds. The famous statue-find from the period of King Sigismund is also on view here. New excavations keep adding significant material to the collections. The English version of the website is not quite complete, but you can read about the permanent exhibitions here. In 2008, the museum organised and housed the exhibition titled Matthias Corvinus, the King.

6. Museum of Ethnography (Néprajzi Múzeum)

Started in 1872 as a unit of the Hungarian National Museum, and becoming an independent institution in 1947, the Museum of Ethnography moved into the former Palace of Justice in 1873. It might be surprising that I am listing it here, as the museum has no medieval collection - but it does include a number of medieval objects in its collections of European furniture, ceramics and textiles. The website of the museum is available in English, but the collection database is only in Hungarian. The Ethnological Archives also contain a lot of material about medieval buildings and wall-paintings.


I did not add pictures of actual medieval objects to this post - but you will find plenty to look at by following the links above. Of course, it is best to come and see these museums for yourself! If you would like to know even more about museums in Hungary, visit the central website for Hungarian museums.

New medieval art websites

In this post I would like to call attention to a number websites dedicated to medieval art. I was inspired to do this by the latest post on the blog 1100sor (1100lines) of Gábor Endrődi - a very informative Hungarian blog on Medieval and Renaissance art. The websites below are recommended not only to specialists - although they are wonderful resources for art historians - but to everyone interested in medieval art in general. They all provide stunning images of major monuments of Gothic art.

Etampes, Collégiale Notre-Dame-du-Fort

Mapping Gothic France - This wonderful websites provides information, images and virtual panoramas of Gothic churches in France. Initiated by Stephen Murray, Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and Andrew Tallon, Assistant Professor of Art at Vassar College, the website was developed by the these two institutions. With a database of images, texts, charts and historical maps, Mapping Gothic France provides parallel stories of Gothic architecture and the formation of France in the 12th and 13th centuries, considered in three dimensions: space, time and narratives. Still officially in beta version, the website is already a treasure-trove of information.

Stained glass from Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
(CVMA GB)

Vidimus - The only online magazine dedicated to medieval stained glass. The online magazin Vidimus is celebrating its fourth year with an annivesary issue - No. 45. Vidimus has a regular news section dedicated (mainly) to medieval stained glass, also listing various medieval exhibitions and new publications. The monthly features - including the Panel of the Month - are short articles dedicated to individual monuments or specific topics (this month to the Fifteen Signs of Doom window in the Church of All Saints, North Street, York and to Jan Gossaert and Stained Glass). I would also recommend the Corpus Virtearum Medii Aevi (GB) website and picture archive (c. 17.000 images). CVMA GB are the publishers of Vidimus.

Haltadefinizione - A website with high resolution images of Italian medieval and Renaissance art. Haltadefinizione provides a gallery of extremely high definition images of the greatest treasures in the history of art, mainly of Italian Renaissance paintings (Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Bronzino, etc.). The main reason for  including it here is the latest addition to the site: a virtual tour of Giotto's Cappella Scrovegni in Padua. You should set the presentation to full screen, and then you can look around in the interior of the chapel (like in any other virtual tour) - then select any part of the frescoes to arrive at a very high resolution image of it. Wonderful (despite the watermark appearing on the images).

Codex Manesse
Heidelberg, UB CPg 848

Two very important Gothic manuscripts are currently exhibited in Leuven and in Heidelberg: The Anjou Bible in Leuven ("a royal manuscript revealed") is on view until December 5, 2010, while the Codex Manesse is exhibited in Heidelberg in the context of the The House of Hohenstaufen and Italy exhibition in the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums Mannheim until 20th February 2011. Both manuscripts are available in superb digital facsimile versions on the web: the Anjou Bible in a special book viewer (the English commentary for which is in preparation), where every illuminated page can be studied and zoomed, and the Codex Manesse in the Digital Library of the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg - with an image of every folio. These two, roughly contemporary 14th-century manuscripts are true highlights of the art of illumination, and browsing these digital editions is highly recommended to everyone.




Seen any good new medieval art websites? Let me know in a comment!

Villard de Honnecourt in Hungary

Villard's drawing of a window from Reims,
with announcement of his trip to Hungary 

The Academic doctoral defense of Imre Takács (see my previous post) made me think about Villard de Honnecourt's trip to Hungary. Takács's dissertation is about the early decades of the 13th century, when Hungary was one of the first areas outside Ile de France where French Gothic architectural and sculptural features appeared. The royal palace of Esztergom - especially the palace chapel - is a significant early Gothic building, built during the rule of King Béla III (1172-1196) next to the cathedral. The palace was not quite finished when in 1198 Béla's son, King Emeric handed it over to the archbishop of Esztergom - thus maybe the chapel was only finished after this date. Not Esztergom, but the royal abbey of Pilis is at the center of Imre Takács's dissertation. This Cistercian Abbey - located roughly between Esztergom and Buda in the Pilis hills - was founded by the king in 1184. In 1213, Queen Gertrude, the wife of Andrew II was murdered, and the queen was buried at Pilis Abbey, which - at least the eastern part - was surely completed by that time.

At this period, a renewed impact of French Gothic (High Gothic, to be precise) can be detected in Hungary - especially at Pilis and at the Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma. Crucial monuments include the tomb of Queen Gertrude and the famous Porta Speciosa at Pannonhalma, both dating from the 1220s. It is perhaps not coincidental that roughly at the same time, the famous Villard de Honnecourt visited Hungary. Just as we are not quite sure of his profession, it is similarly unclear what he did in Hungary or when exactly he visited. Evidence for his visit is included in his sketchbook: on fol. 10v, next to the drawing of an aisle window at Reims, Villard writes: "I had been sent into the land of Hungary when I drew it because I like it best." He also mentions on another folio the he "was once in Hungary, where [he] remained many days". Of all the things he saw there, he chose to draw a pavement, which he saw in a church - at a place he did not name.

On top, Villard's drawing of pavement
motifs he had seen in Hungary

Theories abound concerning the date and purpose of Villard's Hungarian visit. Pilis abbey emerges as a place he may have visited for several reasons:

One of the pavement motifs drawn by Villard in Hungary is known from Pilis Abbey.

The tomb of Gertrude, as well as the fragmentary tomb slab of a knight is in the same style (the characteristic Muldenfaltenstil) as Villard's drawings - leading Gerevich to believe that these were designed by Villard. 

Mentioning these and similar comparisons, Imre Takács also proposes a hypothesis for the historical context of Villard's Hungarian trip (published first in a study: “The French Connection: On the Courtenay Family and Villard de Honnecourt Apropos of a 13th-Century Incised Slab from Pilis Abbey,” Künstlerische Wechselwirkungen in Mitteleuropa, ed. Jirí Fast and Markus Hörsch, Ostfildern, 2006, pp. 11-21.). After the murder of Queen Gertrude (of Andechs-Meran), King Andrew II married Yolande de Courtenay, and Imre Takács emphasizes the role of the Courtenay family in Hungary. They were also the lords of the area where Villard was from. Takács proposed that the red marble tomb slab from Pilis was that of Robert de Courtenay, Latin emperor of Constantinople (1221-1228).

Drawing of a soldier from Villard's sketchbook
and fragments of the tomb of a knight
(Robert de Courtenay?) from Pilis

Takács also poses the following questions: “Is it possible that Villard … may have been traveling in the entourage of Emperor Robert on his way east in the winter of 1220? Could we not suppose in fact that Villard was a multi-talented individual in the Courtenay court and capable of carrying out “engineering” tasks, giving theoretical advice and making practical decisions? And finally, is it not possible that the quality of the drawing on the Pilis inscribed slab is so similar to Villard’s personal style, because he may actually have taken part in the work’s creation, if only in so much as making the sketches?”

Upcoming events in Budapest

The following events will no doubt be of interest to medieval art historians in Budapest.

November 18 (Thursday): Open debate and defense of the doctoral dissertation of Imre Takács at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is to become a Doctor of the Hungarian Academy (a much higher level than a PhD, see here). His dissertation is titled: Reception of Gothic in the Kingdom of Hungary at the time of King Andrew II (1205-1235). Imre Takács is the director of the Museum of Applied Arts. More info on the website of the Academy.

November 24 (Wednesday): Dedication of a room at the Art History Department at ELTE named after Lajos Fülep, Hungary's great art historian. Also, the presentation of the annual prizes awarded by the Department. For more info, see here.

November 25 (Thursday): Presentation of two books published by the László Teleki Foundation. I wrote on both books here before: one is by Márton Sarkadi about Gyulafehérvár cathedral, the other was edited by Tibor Kollár on medieval architecture in southern Hungary. The books will be presented by Ernő Marosi, Szilárd Papp, and Judit Tamási, see here.

Menawhile, the Natalie Zimon Davies Annual lectures are still going on at the Medieval Studies Department of CEU.

The earliest copies of Hungarian medieval wall-paintings

Máramarossziget
detail of the St. Catherine legend (copy)

In 1844, during repairs after a minor earthquake, medieval wall-paintings were uncovered in the Calvinist church of Máramarossziget (at that time the capital of Máramaros County, today Sighetu Marmaţiei in Romania). Instead of simply recording this fact in the Historia domus, and covering the paintings over, a detailed report was sent to Budapest, to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which had been founded not so long ago, in 1825. After requesting more information, Imre Henszlmann, the only art historian member of the Academy, delivered a lecture on the wall paintings of Máramarossziget in 1847. By this time, Henszlmann has already published his monograph on the Church of St. Elisabeth in Kassa (Kaschau, Košice, Slovakia) and also in 1846, was among those issuing a general call for the protection of historic monuments.

Máramarossziget church in 1846

In delivering his lecture, Henszlmann relied on a plan and view of the church (illustrated to the right) and also a copy of the wall-paintings. He did not describe the copy, and his description of the frescoes is not entirely clear. István Szilágyi, a teacher at the college of Máramarossziget and a member of the Academy corrected Henszlmann's interpretation in a lecture presented in 1850 (as it is well known, Hungary was occupied with a revolution and a failed war for independence in 1848-1849). Szilágyi did not have a chance to see the frescoes himself, but his interpretation was based on first-hand eyewitness accounts, in addition to copies. This episode represents the first true art historical debate in Hungary, concerning a medieval monument.

As it happened, the church of Máramarossziget burned down in 1859. The fire destroyed a large part of the town, the entire roof of the church burned down, and the vaults all collapsed. As a result of this catastrophy, the wall paintings - even more of them - came to light again. This time Szilágyi had a chance to examine them, and a new set of drawings and copies were made. A sad decision had to be made - the remains of the church had to be torn down, with the exception of the medieval tower. Rebuilding the church was halted by another fire in 1872 - the new building was only finished in 1892.

Honors for this blog

Dear Readers,

I am very proud to announce that my blog has been listed as one of the 50 best blogs for medieval history geeks. Whether my readers are geeks or not is not for me to say - it still feels good to be listed.
My blog entries were also listed in the October 2010 issue of the Art History Carnival (edited by Margaret Lozano at The Earthly Paradise) and in the November 2010 issue of the Art History Carnival (edited by Monica Bowen at Alberti's Window). One of my posts was included in the 92nd History Carnival at The Early Modern Intelligencer of the Birbeck Early Modern Society. My blog is also mentioned in Vidimus, the only on-line magazine devoted to stained glass.

I am grateful for all these mentions and listings. If you would like to stay up-to-date about this blog, you can follow it by clicking "follow" at the top of the page. Alternatively, you can follow my Twitter feed or follow my blog at NetworkedBlogs (where it is listed as one of the top 38 blogs in art history).

Thanks for reading, and thanks for following and sharing.

Abandoned medieval churches in Transylvania

The Calvinist church of Marosszentimre (Sântimbru) in Transylvania 

I would like to start this post by a poem written by my grandfather, Zoltán Jékely, in 1936. The translation included here is by Bernard S. Adams.¹

A marosszentimrei templomban Fejünkre por hull, régi vakolat, így énekeljük a drága Siont: egér futkározik a pad alatt s odvából egy-egy vén kuvik kiront. Tízen vagyunk: ez a gyülekezet, a tizenegyedik maga a pap, de énekelünk mi százak helyett, hogy hull belé a por s a vakolat, a hiúban a denevér riad s egy-egy szúvas gerenda meglazul: tizenegyedikünk az árva pap, tizenkettedikünk maga az Úr. Így énekelünk mi, pár megmaradt - azt bünteti, akit szeret az Úr -, s velünk dalolnak a padló alatt, kiket kiirtott az idő gazul.

In Marosszentimre Church As crumbling plaster falls upon our heads, Thus we the praises of dear Zion sing: Beneath the pews mice scurry from their nests, An ancient company of owls take wing. We in the congregation number ten, Eleven if we reckon in the priest, But when we sing, we sound a hundred men. Down pour the plaster and the dust; The bats are startled in their attic roost; Worm-eaten rafters weakened even more. Eleventh is our solitary priest, The twelfth among us is the Lord himself. And so we sing, the few that still remain —The Lord exacts a price from him that loves— And those whom wicked time from us has ta’en Join in our psalmody beneath the floor.

On its most simple level, this poem expressed what is an ever-growing problem of abandoned churches in Transylavania. In several areas of Transylvania, Hungarian population has drastically decreased in a process which had speeded up since the middle of the 19th century. After the Treaty of Trianon (1920), when Hungary ceded Transylvania to Romania, this process reached a dramatic scale, especially in southern Transylvania (the area around Gyulafehérvár cathedral, on which see my earlier post). In a place like Marosszentimre, where my grandfather could write about a Calvinist congregation of ten people, today there is practically no Hungarian congregation. Unlike Hungarians, the Romanian population is Eastern Orthodox, and they have built their own new churches in Marosszentimre and similar places. As a result, there are a number of virtually abandoned medieval churches throughout Transylvania. Managed by the Hungarian Catholic or Calvinist churches, sometimes there is no money for even the most basic maintenance of these structures, and with no locals to carry out simple repairs, many of these churches are virtually on the brink of collapse. The Romanian government or its monument protection agency similarly pays little attention to these places.