Detail views of Salgó chalices at the Metropolitan

The Metropolitan Museum has just made available a number of detail photographs of the two medieval chalices which had recently entered the museum from the Salgó collection. Both chalices date from the mid-15th century, and are decorated with a special technique very popular in late medieval Hungary: the so called filigree-enamel. In this special variation of the cloisonné enamel, the fields of enamel are applied inside loops and shapes of filigree wire attached to the surface of the objects. You can read about medieval enameling techniques in this article (pdf) by David Buckton of the British Museum.

The two chalices are now described on the Metropolitan website as of "Central European" origin. However, the technique and details of both chalices - which can be studies on these photographs - makes their Hungarian origin quite certain - there is plenty of comparative material available, such as this chalice. More information could be gleaned from the coat of arms on the foot of one chalice, and the inscription on the cup of the other.

These are the links to the object pages:

Chalice from 1462

Mid-15th c. chalice with coat of arms

I wrote about the Salgó collection before in two previous posts.

Medieval treasure discovered in Wiener Neustadt

Belt buckle from the Wiener Neustadt treasure 

An important cache of medieval goldsmith works was found a few years ago, it was announced last week. The treasure was found by a man digging in his backyard in Wiener Neustadt. He, however, only took an interest in the objects quite recently, finally bringing them to the Austrian Office of Monument Preservation. On Friday it was reported that about 200 pieces were found - rings, brooches, other jewels, most apparently dating from the 13th-14th century.


Currently no detailed information is available on the find, but several pictures are already circulating on the internet. The image on the left is from this report by Der Standard, but the same photos released by the Bundesdenkmalamt have been published in many other places. The Austrian weekly profil was the first to report on the find, and The Associated Press also reported on the treasure - finally the story was picked up by several news outlets worldwide. The Bundesdenkmalamt of Austria will provide more details at a press conference on May 2nd.

The author of this blog of course would like to know whether any of the objects can be identified as of Hungarian origin.

Update: here is the report on the press conference of the Bundesdenkmalamt, where some of the objects were put on display.

The secret of the casket

Photos by Melange Galéria, Budapest 

A small Italian Renaissance casket went on display earlier this month in a Budapest gallery. The display was opened by Mária Prokopp, university professor and a noted expert of Italian Renaissance painting. So far not much is known about the intriguing object, the website of the gallery only says this much about it:

"This is the first public appearance of this precious Renaissance casket, which had been serving as a medicine case in the household of an elderly lady for the last 30 years."

The small casket (about 50 cm wide) is decorated with a well-composed Renaissance painting on the front, and two coat of arms on the shorter sides. The main scene seems to be some kind of triumphal or marriage procession - and is in very bad condition. Some small areas have already been cleaned, to reveal the original bright colors. The details are very fine, like in a manuscript illumination. The coats of arms on the sides seem rather general - an eagle and a lion. On the back side, there is an inscription fitting for the object, which reads: "Quod ut custoditorum me nemo sciat" (No-one shall know what is guarded by me).

It is clear that the casket is in need of restoration and detailed examination. It is hard to say more about it, until that happens. A series of photographs can be seen on the website of the gallery, plus here is a detail of the painting from the front of the casket. Renaissance experts - feel free to comment!

Earliest Christian church of Transylvania found at Gyulafehérvár

Traces of the oldest church of Transylvania

Photo from www.kronika.ro 

New archaeological research near the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia, Romania, the seat of the bishopric of Transylvania) led to the discovery of the remains of the semicircular apse of a medieval church. Archaeologists believe this is Transylvania’s oldest church, built around the year 1000 - thus before the foundation of the diocese in 1009 (see my previous post on the history of the cathedral). The remains were found at a depth of only one meter, 24 meters away from the Catholic Cathedral of St. Michael. Daniela Marcu Istrate, well-known archaeologist announced in a press conference on April 18 that the newly discovered church might have been built either by prince Gyula or by Saint King Stephen. Around 952, Gyula was baptized in Constantinople, and upon his return was given a bishop named Hierotheos who accompanied him back to Hungary - so if the church dates to the period of prince Gyula, it was built for the Byzantine rite (of course we are before the Great Schism of 1054 at this time). Besides the apse, archaeologists have also discovered several tombs dating back to the 12th century. However, experts believe that the church was already destroyed at that time. For the moment, work at the archaeological site has been suspended for lack of funds. The remains of the apse will be preserved provisionally.

Most interesting about this find is that it is not connected to the present 13th century cathedral - or its 11th century predecessor - in any way. The archaeologist proposes that this feature means that the new Roman Catholic cathedral was deliberately distanced from the earlier structure built for the Greek rite.

You can read more about the discovery in Hungarian or in Romanian.

It is worth noting that the town - Roman Apulum - has an even older history: lately, more and more Roman remains have also come to light, see here.

Open access online journals of medieval art

More and more journals are available in an open access format on the web - and more and more are only published in this format, without a printed version. The advantages of speedy publication at a lower cost are obvious, and the publications can potentially reach a much larger audience. Editorial work and peer-review can of course be maintained for online publications just as for traditional outlets.

When it comes to medieval art, there is a generous selection of such journals on the web, to supplement such print (+ restricted online access) journals as Gesta. What follows is a selection of such journals, with a brief description lifted from the introductory pages of the respective journals.

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture

Peregrinations is published by the International Society for the Study of Pilgrimage Art, which was founded in 2000 to bring together scholars who explore the art and architecture of pilgrimage in the late Middle Ages. The journal "provides a forum for themes and topics related to that subject, and to share current research. [...] The artistic expressions which were created to give form to the cults are the objects of our investigation.

The journal is edited by Sarah Blick, and the latest issue is Volume 3, Issue 1 (2010). The journal also maintains a photo-bank.

Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives on Medieval Art

The journal is "a web-based, open-access, peer-reviewed annual, devoted to progressive scholarship on medieval art. Different Visions seeks to fill a significant gap in current publishing venues by featuring articles employing contemporary postmodern and poststructuralist theoretical frameworks to examine medieval visual culture. Authors are encouraged to explore the application of such approaches as feminist and gender analysis, historiography, semiotics, post colonialism and queer theory to works produced during the period from the fourth through the fifteenth century. The journal will also consider essays on medieval visual culture that emerge from multiple disciplinary perspectives." The editor-in-Chief of the Journal is Rachel Dressler, and Issue Two is the most latest on the site.

Conference and exhibition about László Gerevich

László Gerevich, one of the eminent Hungarian archaeologists of the Middle Ages, was born 100 years ago. To commemorate, the Budapest History Museum organized a conference and an exhibition about his career. The highlight of this career was the excavation of the medieval royal palace of Buda, which became possible after the destruction of World War II. Gerevich was able to uncover the lower lever of the entire medieval palace, bringing to light a number of highly important finds. In that period, he was the director of the Budapest History Museum, and later also the founder and first director of the Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Gerevich also excavated several other medieval sites, including the Cistercian Abbey of Pilis (see my recent post on the abbey). His English-language books include The Art of Buda and Pest in the Middle Ages and Towns in Medieval Hungary. If you read Hungarian, you can find more information on him here.

You can read the program of today's conference by clicking on the image above. I will write another post on the exhibition once I get a chance to visit it.

Conquest-period sabretache plate found at Hungarian excavations

Sabretache plate excavated in Pest county
Photo from Sírásók naplója blog 

A Hungarian archaeological blog (Sírásók naplója) reported on a recent lucky find in Pest county of Hungary. Last week, remains from the period of the Hungarian Conquest (early 10th century) have been found on a field, and excavated by archaeologists from the Pest County Museums. Of the three tombs found, one belonged to a high-ranking male, and all his accessories were found intact, including his belt and his arrow. Most important is the his sabretache plate. To quote András Róna-Tas (Hungarian and Europe in the Early Middle Ages - An Introduction to Early Hungarian History), "the sabretaches are the most characteristic finds from graves of the Conquest period. They were strengthened with metal plates, generally of silver. At the side of each bag, a strap was threaded through, and both this strap and that which attached the bag to the belt were decorated with mountings. The sabretache, which fulfilled the function of a pocket, would have held fire-making tools." 

Only about two dozen similar objects have been recovered from the Carpathian basin, and very few of them come from documented excavations, so the find is of great importance. As the archaeologists, Ágnes Füredi and Tibor Rácz report on their blog, the last similar find was made in the late 1980s, when tombs at Karos were excavated.

Sabretache from Galgóc
Hungarian National Museum 

The photo above is from the Sírásók naplója blog - you can find more images of the excavations there. For more information on Magyar metalwork of the Conquest period, visit the website of the Archaeological Department of the Hungarian National Museum. Sabretaches enjoy some popularity in contemporary Hungary - I found the most complete list of such finds on one of the traditionalist websites, the Tarsolybearers' Homepage. Defitinely have a look at the sabretache plate from Galgóc, maybe the finest of such objects, and the first one to be found, back in 1868.