Reviews of the Sigismundus exhibition catalogue

One of the most important medieval art history exhibitions organized in Hungary was the one dedicated to King and Emperor Sigismund in 2006. 

Shown first in Budapest and later in Luxembourg, the exhibition was accompanied by a catalog published in Hungarian, German and French. Several other publilcations were also published in conjunction with the event, including the acts of a conference held a year before. The full list of publications can be seen on the website of the exhibition. A few photos of the exhibition are available on my website.

The exhibition catalogue, titled Sigismundus - Rex et Imperator: Kunst und Kultur zur Zeit Sigismunds von Luxemburg, 1387-1437, was edited by Imre Takács, with the assistance of Zsombor Jékely, Szilárd Papp, and Györgyi Poszler. It was published Philipp von Zabern of Mainz (ISBN 978-3-8053-3626-0).
Over the years, a number of detailed reviews have been written of this exhibition catalog. I am listing a few of them below. Some reviews also discuss the conference volume, edited by Michel Pauly - François Reinert and titled Sigismund von Luxemburg: Ein Kaiser in Europa. Tagungsband des internationalen historischen und kunsthistorischen Kongresses in Luxemburg, 8-10. Juni 2005.

• Review by Tim Juckes in Renaissance Studies (Oxford), 21 (2007), 99-105, pdf version in Google docs or through CiteULike.
• Review by Len Scales in English Historical Review, 124, (2009), No. 509., 944-946, pdf version in Google docs or through CiteULike.
• Review by Ana Maria Gruia in the online journal Studia Patzinaka (Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies), No. 3 (2006), direct link to pdf version.
• Review by Ansgar Frenken on H-Net Reviews (H-Soz-u-Kult), 2007.
• Overview of the project by Ernő Marosi in The Hungarian Quarterly, 2006. Marosi also wrote a review of the catalogue in 
  Bulletin du Musée des Beaux-Arts – A Szépművészeti Múzeum Közleményei, 105 (2007).
• Overview on Chronico.de by Marcel Schwarzenberger, 2006.
• Hungarian language review by Tünde Wehli in Új Művészet, 2006.
• Another Hungarian review by János Végh, in Művészettörténeti Értesítő 2007/1.

In addition, there is a long review by Štefan Oriško in, Ars (Bratislava), 39 (2006/1), 31-52 (abstract here) and also by Matthew Palmer in Acta Historiae Artium, 48 (2007), 341-349, neither of which is available online. 


An important review by Klara Benešovská is not only about the Sigismundus exhibition, but also about another important venture dedicated to the Luxemburg dynasty, the exhbition Prague - The Crown of Bohemia, shown in New York and Prague. It was published in Perspective, La revue de l'INHA 2008/1, 138-145. For more on the Luxemburg dynasty, you should also read the review of the conference volume Prague and Bohemia, edited by Zoë Opačić, in The Medieval Review. This period, one of the high points of Central European Art, will also be the subject of an international colloquium organized in Maribor, Slovenia, early next year.

Conference on medieval ecclesiastical architecture in Transylvania

The monastery church of Ákos (Acâş),

the most important Romanesque monument

 of Szatmár County

This coming weekend, on October 8-10, 2010, an international conference will be dedicated to medieval ecclesiastical architecture in Transylvania. Jointly organized by the County Museum of Satu Mare (Romania) and the Museums of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County (Hungary), the conference will be held at Szatmárnémeti (Satu Mare). Speakers will include noted archaeologists, art and architectural historians both from Romania and Hungary. Topics include mainly Romanesque and Gothic church buildings and medieval wall-paintings. I uploaded the program of the conference, you can read it by following this link.



The present conference is the 7th in a series started in 1997. This long tradition and the international nature of the conference makes it one of the most important forums to present new research on medieval art in Transylvania. Another important factor is that the conference papers are published in bilingual (sometimes tri-lingual) publications. So far, four volumes have been published, and volume V is currently in preparation.

You can reach these books, and many other publications of the County Museum of Satu Mare on a website they dedicated to monuments of the county.

Here are the direct links to the individual volumes:
Volume II (2002)
Volume III (2004)
Volume IV (2007)
(Volume I is not available on the website, but you can find the contents of it in the database of the Regesta Imperii Opac).

Finally, if you would like to know more about the monastery church of Ákos (pictured above), visit the database of architectural monuments on the same website. All information is available in English, Hungarian and Romanian.

New books on medieval archaeology

Given the tumultuous history of Hungary, archaeology plays a major role in interpreting the medieval heritage of the Kingdom (see my previous post on this). Excavations in this field yielded spectacular results, much of which is now summarized in a new two-volume publication. Titled A középkor és a kora újkor régészete Magyarországon (Archaeology of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period in Hungary), and edited by Elek Benkő and Gyöngyi Kovács, the book will be presented to the public tomorrow (October 5). Ernő Marosi, a member of the Hungarian Academy, will present the book.

41 authors wrote the total of 980 pages in these two well-illustrated volumes. The book is in Hungarian, but with English summaries. The volumes were published by the Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences You can read about some other publications of the Institute here.

You can read an interview with the editors on the website of the Hungarian Academy and in the online historical journal Múlt-kor (both in Hungarian).

For additional information on this field, you can turn to a book published some years ago. Visy Zsolt, ed.: 

Hungarian archeology at the turn of the millennium (Budapest: Teleki László Alapítvány, 2003) contains a great number of studies on medieval archaeology, and is available in a pdf version at the website of the Foundation (this is the link to the Hungarian version). See especially the section on the Middle Ages and the Post-Medieval period, edited by József Laszlovszky on pp. 345-413.

1000 years of Gyulafehérvár Cathedral

Western facade of Gyulafehérvár cathedral
Survey by Márton Sarkadi and Tamás Emődi, 1996 

In 1009, King Stephen I decided to create a new bishopric, with jurisdiction over the territory of Transylvania. The seat of the bishopric was established at Gyulafehérvár (Karlsburg, Alba Iulia) and the first cathedral, dedicated to Saint Michael, was erected during the 11th century. The first cathedral was replaced with a much larger Romanesque cathedral, construction of which started at the end of the 12th century, and was for the most part completed before the Mongol invasion of 1241. At that time the town and the church was sacked and burned. Just as soon as repairs were made, the Saxons of nearby Szeben (Hermannstadt, Sibiu) sacked the town again in 1277. Two very important contracts dating from 1287 an 1291 detail the repairs undertaken at this time, with the latter date indicating completion of the entire edifice. These dates at the same time also underline the significance of this building: apart from smaller expansion and the addition of chapels, the building as it stands today originates from the 13th century. This makes Gyulafehérvár the only cathedral building to have survived from the Árpád-period - well, in fact, from the Middle Ages at all. (Other cathedral cities - including Esztergom, Kalocsa, Pécs, Veszpém, Győr, Vác, Eger, Várad - were in the territories occupied by the Ottoman Turks. To get an idea of their fate, see my previous post on the destruction of the centers of medieval Hungary).

The main body of the church is that of the Romanesque building, although the western part of the nave was vaulted in the 14th century. The two side apses, opening from the transept, are also from this period, while the original main apse has been replaced with a much longer early Gothic apse, built during the 1270s. Chapels on the north side (Lázói and Várdai chapels) originate from the early 16th century, and the monumental south tower also dates from the Gothic period. The building has suffered more during the last few centuries than it could be summarized here (significant dates of damage include 1438, 1565, 1601, 1603, 1658, 1849) - yet it still stands today and serves as the center of the Hungarian catholic church in Romania.

The building underwent major renovation at the beginning of the 20th century. The work, which was led by István Möller, was not fully completed by 1918, when Gyulafehérvár became part of Romania. More recently, several campaigns of restoration have been carried out during the last fifteen years, in preparation for the millennial celebrations of the bishopric. During this period, a large amount of archaeological and art historical research was carried out, the results of which are now largely published.
In this post, I would like to call attention to these publications.

Destruction of the centers of medieval Hungary

On August 29 1526, the army of Suleiman the Magnificent defeated the Hungarian army at Mohács. King Louis II died on the battlefield, and the sultan's army marched on to take the capital, Buda. At that time, the Turkish army withdrew - but in 1541, Suleiman took the capital of the divided kingdom without having to lay siege to it. Two years later, he occupied the towns of Pécs, Székesfehérvár and Esztergom, and Visegrád fell soon after that. Thus all the centrally located towns - the Medium Regni - became part of the Ottoman Empire for 150 years. Because of the prohibition of figural religious imagery, this period led to the destruction of altarpieces, paintings, statues and to the covering up of frescoes. Damage to buildings was caused by neglect, but even more during the wars waged in order to reconquer these towns, especially during the Long War ('15 years' war,' 1591-1606) and the final campaign of 1683-1687. When the towns were retaken by the Christians, it was largely ruins what they found. Remains of important medieval buildings were generally taken down as new structures were erected during the 18th century.

As a result, the most important medieval sites of Hungary only survived as ruins, their remains recovered during various archaeological campaigns. The sites include Buda, the capital of the Kingdom; Esztergom, the seat of Hungary's Primate Archbishop; Székesfehérvár, the coronation and burial place of Hungarian kings; and Visegrád, perhaps the most important royal castle complex of the land. 

The photos below illustrate what little is left of these sites. Rather than illustrating the destruction (about which many contemporary prints were made), I chose mainly photos showing moments of discovery - although the first example will be of destruction.

Buda and Óbuda

This is an image of Buda castle from 1686, at the time when the center of the Kingdom was retaken by the joint Christian armies. The print shows the castle hill, with the ruins of the medieval royal palace on top of the hill. Very little of this survived when the new, Baroque royal palace was built in the 18th century.

Medieval art exhibitions worldwide

Virgin and Child from Toporc,
Hungarian National Gallery
Currently on view in London

Two new exhibitions mentioned before on this blog are now open:

• D'or et de feu - L'art en Slovaquie à la fin du Moyen Âge, at the Musée du Moyen Âge - Thermes et Hôtel de Cluny, Paris.
• Treasures from Budapest: European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele, at the Royal Academy in London, featuring several Hungarian medieval objects.

As far as the late medieval art of Upper Hungary is concerned (shown at Musée de Cluny), a unique opportunity for comparison will be offered with the opening of another exhibition at the Grand Palais in early October. Titled France 1500, entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance, that exhibition will present the same period as at the focus of the "D'or et de feu" show. While in Paris, you may want to check out the show at the gallery Les Enluminures, titled also France 1500 (The Pictorial Arts at the Dawn of the Renaissance), or at least the accompanying beautiful virtual exhibition.

The medieval parish church of Pest (part II.) - A remarkable discovery

This post focuses on the medieval fresco decoration of the Inner City parish church of Pest - you can read my introduction to the history of the building here.
Not much survived of the original painted decoration of the Inner City parish church. Knowing the history of the building, it is not surprising that all these are associated with the choir and ambulatory of the building. Over the years, the following fragments have been discovered:

• Some fragments of the  earliest painted decoration, found on broadstones, during excavations, surviving from the Romanesque-period chancel of the church.
• Head of a bishop and of a female figure, found on fragments of the late Gothic tabernacle. These frescoes - especially the bishop - were in quite good condition at the time of their discovery in the 1930s. They were built in when the tabernacle was reconstructed - today they are just barely legible.

Head of a bishop, fresco fragment on the Gothic tabernacle
(Condition in 1933)

• Fragments of scenes and figures inside the wall niches encircling the choir ambulatory. These have been discovered during the 1940s, and they have been detached and restored many times. Not much remains: just two scenes - Christ on the Mount of Olives and a Calvary - can be identified, and a few heads of angels survived in the upper circle of the blind tracery articulating the niches. These frescoes can be dated to the early decades of the 15th century.

Fragments of Christ on the Mount of Olives,
with the Veil of Veronica above