Leaf from Hungarian Angevin Legendary on view at the Louvre

Leaf from the Hungarian Angevin Legendary
Louvre, Paris

This summer, from July 7, 2011 until October 10, 2011, the Louvre is showing its Medieval and Renaissance Illuminations in an exhibition featuring seventy Italian, French, Flemish, and Germanic manuscript pages from historical, literary, or liturgical manuscripts. As the homepage of the exhibition states, "the Louvre’s collection of illuminations remains little known, despite the famous masterpieces it comprises. The publication of the collection’s catalogue raisonné is an opportunity to discover these exquisite works." 

You can read more about the exhibition at the narthex.fr website, as the Louvre itself does not provide a lot of information. I realized therefore from a recent article in the International Herald Tribune that a very important manuscript leaf with Hungarian connections, a leaf from the Hungarian Angevin Legendary is also on view (Département des Arts Graphiques, RF 29940). The page shows four scenes from the life of St. Francis, and can be seen here to the left (photo source: RMN).

The Hungarian Angevin Legendary is the most important 14th-century Bolognese manuscript made for Hungarian royal patrons.This lavishly illustrated picture-book of the lives of the saints contains four miniatures on each of its pages, accompanied by one-line text labels. The majority of the dismantled manuscript is preserved in the Vatican Library, but there are leaves from it in a number of other collections, most notably at the Morgan Library in New York. As of today, altogether 142 leaves from the Legendary (some of them fragmentary) are known in six different collections of the world. I am providing direct links to photos and descriptions of some of these page on my website about Medieval Hungary. It is possible that some other fragments will come to light, as the original number of folios is estimated at 176. The 549 surviving little pictures contain parts from the legends of altogether sixty-three saints, plus from the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary. The quality of its execution and its sheer size indicate that the manuscript must have been a royal commission, and its iconography – rich in Hungarian and Angevin saints – suggests it was created for the court of the Hungarian Angevin kings. According to earlier opinions, the codex could have been ordered by Charles I, king of Hungary (1307-1342), for his son, Andrew educated in Naples, or for his own library. This somewhat romantic notion, based on the naive theory that medieval picture-books were meant for children, has recently been called into question (see the study of Béla Zsolt Szakács: "The Holy Father and the Devils, or Could the Hungarian Angevin Legendary Have Been Ordered for a Pope?," In: ... The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways ... Festschrift in Honor of János M. Bak. Ed. by Balázs Nagy and Marcell Sebők. Budapest: CEU Press, 1999, 52-60.), but no new proposal has yet been generally accepted. With regards to its style, the research of Meta Harrsen, Robert Gibbs and others have clarified its connections with the Nekcsei-Bible (on which you can read my recent study, which I made available through Academia.edu), and thus with the circle of the Master of 1328. However, Tuscan, South-Italian and unidentified features are also present in the manuscript's style, and its iconography shows deep Hungarian influence; thus, the place of its creation might have been in Hungary. The dating of the codex, based on these hypotheses and stylistic examination, can be put between 1328 and 1345.

The leaf in the Louvre was first published in detail by Gyöngyi Török ("Problems of the Hungarian Angevin Legendary: a new folio in the Louvre," In: Arte cristiana vol. 89 (2001), 417-426), who also wrote on it in the new catalogue. A Hungarian version of her study is available here. Those with JSTOR access can read another study by Gyöngyi Török ("Neue Folii aus dem 'Ungarischen Anjou-Legendarium,'" In: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte vol. 55. (1992), 565-577). Another study on a leaf at Berkeley is also available online (Julia Bader - George Starr: "A Saint in the Family: A Leaf of the "Hungarian Anjou Legendary" at Berkeley," In: Hungarian Studies vol. 2 (1986), 3-12). Pages from the manuscript were last on display at The Morgan Library and Museum, in 2009. Another leaf from the legend of St. Francis is at the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

Medieval seal matrix of Nagybánya stolen

After some good news reported yesterday, today I have something sad to write on. As reported by Hungarian and Romanian press alike, the seal matrix of the town of Nagybánya has gone missing some time in late July. (Nagybánya was known as Asszonypataka or  Neustadt in the Middle Ages, and was one of the most important mining towns in Szatmár county. The town is today called Baia Mare, and is the seat of Maramures county of Romania). The seal matrix was stolen from a glass showcase in the County Historical and Archaeological Museum of Maramures County. The theft was announced on August 2nd.

The octagonal silver seal matrix of Nagybánya is one of the celebrated miniature masterpieces of 14th century Hungarian goldsmith work. It can be dated to the 1360s, and was probably made in a royal workshop. King Louis the Great (1342-1382) has given several privileges to the emerging mining town, and supported construction of its great parish church, dedicated to St. Stephen. The seal shows a seated king atop a hill - likely St. Stephen, with two miners working below. The inscription on the perimeter reads: S[igilium] d[e] R[ivulo] D[ominarum], Mutuus amor civiu[m] optimu[m] e[st] civitatis firmamentu[m] (roughly: 'The mutual love of citizens is the best foundation of the city').

The original seal matrix and a modern cast on display at Baia Mare

After missing for centuries, the seal matrix was found in a vineyard in 1904. It was put on display in the history museum in 2004. Hopefully it will be recovered soon.

Read more: news report in Romanian and in Hungarian.

Most recent overview of the medieval architecture and sculpture of Nagybánya - in particular an overview of the church of St. Stephen - is available in a new volume about medieval Szatmár county, available in full text in Hungarian and Romanian. Look for the studies of Szilárd Papp and Veronika Csikós. 

Medieval news in the Hungarian press

I'm back from my vacation, and I am returning to blogging with a brief overview of news about medieval art and archaeology in the Hungarian press. Summer is naturally the chief season for archaeologists, so there are reports about various interesting finds. The links are all to Hungarian-language news sources - generally with images, so perhaps worth clicking, even if you don't know the language.

Remains of early Christian chapel found at Pécs photo from pécsma.hu 

The historical portal Múlt-kor reports on an early Christian chapel found at Pécs. More and more of the early Christian necropolis there is coming to light. This particular chapel was found in March - current reports are about the decision to re-bury the find, as there is no money to properly conserve and restore the architectural remains. Local newspapers reported first on the discovery - Múlt-kor now reports about the decision to protect the walls by covering them again.

 

In a post one year ago, I wrote briefly about the world heritage site of Pécs, linking to some 3D reconstructions of the early Christian building.

Photo of Siklós castle - by Népszabadság

South of Pécs, the castle of Siklós is in the news again - Hungary's largest daily, Népszabadság reports about the small late-medieval prayer niche found inside the castle wall there. I wrote about the research and reconstruction of Siklós castle in a previous post - and plan to report in more detail about this interesting painted niche as well.

As a further addition for now, I am providing this link to three 360 degree panorama photos of Siklós castle - one of them showing the interior of the famous chapel.

Reconstruction of Szeged in the second half of the 18th c.

Múlt-kor and other sources are also reporting on the excavations at the site of the former castle of Szeged. This year, remains of the southern gate tower were found, in the same area where remains of the southern wall of the castle were identified last year. Excavations in the area have been going on for several years. The castle of Szeged was originally built in the 13th century, and was significantly modified after the town was captured by the Ottoman Turks in 1543. During the 18th century, the fortress fell into disrepair, and was completely dismantled by local citizens after the flood of 1879.

Therefore, excavations are bringing to life only the remains of foundations, thereby helping to reconstruct exactly the former extent of the castle. The online magazine műemlékem.hu reported on finds from previous years, with a photo gallery.

Museums of Medieval Art

My recent visit to the Schnütgen Museum in Cologne got me thinking about museums focusing mainly on medieval art. I decided to make a brief list of such museums, with direct links to their collection databases - thousands of medieval artworks can be discovered this way.

Reliquary ('Ursulabüste'),
Museum Schnütgen, Köln 

Let's start with the Schnütgen Museum, then (Museum Schnütgen, Köln). Located in the Romanesque church of St. Cecilia, this 100 year old museum received a complete makeover, completed last year. The new entrance opens from a large hall, which is in the new building erected for the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, a museum of world cultures. The collection of the Schnütgen Museum consists largely of Christian religious objects, ranging from the Early Christian period to the Baroque, with a strong focus on sculpture, liturgical textiles and stained glass from Cologne and the Rheinland. There is no full collection database online, and the English version of the website only provides basic information. The website however does provide a good overview of chief works on display. An audioguide to the museum is available for download - although I don't know what its purpose is without the artworks.

Lady with the Unicorn,
Musée Cluny, Paris

Maybe the most famous of all medieval art museums is the Musée Cluny in Paris - officially the Musée national du Moyen Age. Located in the building of the Gallo-Roman thermes and the 15th century Hôtel de Cluny, and surrounded by a medieval garden, visiting this museum is a unique experience. The collection ranges from late Antiquity to the late Middle Ages, and includes exceptional goldsmith works, stone sculptures from Parisian churches - such as the Notre-Dame, as well as the famous Unicorn tapestries. There is a brief overview of the collection on the museum's website, but a lot more objects and images can be found through the photo agency of the Réunion des musées nationaux (where you can search for specific objects, but also by selecting the museum on the search form). The Museum's objects are also incorporated into the French national art database, Joconde. You can select the Musée Cluny directly, or search for thousands of other medieval objects in various French collection. In addition, a fascinating resource on the museum is also available online: the catalogue of 13th century sculptures (Les sculptures du XIIIe siècle du musée de Cluny).

The Unicorn in Captivity
The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum

The only similar museum to the Musée Cluny is on the other side of the Atlantic, in Manhattan: The Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Housed in a large pseudo-medieval structure, which contains actual chapels and cloisters shipped over from Europe, this is one of the finest collections of medieval art anywhere. The website of the Metropolitan Museum provides a lot of information on The Cloisters, and also on the medieval department, including a selection of works on view. The collection is rich in sculptures of all kind, goldsmith works, manuscripts and also includes another set of Unicorn tapestries. You can search these objects in the museum's Collection Database, which is continually growing. If you select The Cloisters from the list of collections, 2300 objects can be browsed at present (about half of which are on view). Selecting the Collection of Medieval Art from the list yields an incredible further 6700 medieval objects in the database.

You can also download the Metropolitan Museum's Resource for Educators on Medieval Art. 

I would like to mention that many other American museums made their collections accessible online. For medieval art, I would particularly recommend the database of the The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (see also the manuscripts there!) and that of The Cleveland Museum of Art, with 1214 works online.

First publications on the murals of the parish church of Pest

The 14th century fresco of the Virgin of Child, discovered last year in the sanctuary of the Inner City Parish Church of Pest (in downtown Budapest) created quite a stir. I suppose it always creates some stir when a a fresco appears older than the wall it is painted on. The sanctuary of the parish church of Pest has always been dated to around 1400, while the fresco clearly dates from  some time in the 14th century. This then of course calls for a re-evaluation of the construction history of the church, something which is quite hard to do without more extensive on-site research. Already, debate is raging on concerning the date of the newly discovered frescoes (also, some questions have been raised about the restoration as well). A detailed examination of the building and all its fresco decoration, however, is yet to be carried out.

The Hungarian journal Műemlékvédelem published several articles on the building, summarizing the results of previous art historical and architectural research, also publishing restorer Éva Derdák's overview of the uncovering and restoration of the mural (Műemlékvédelem, vol. LIV, 2010/6). The journal is not available online, but you can see the contents of the issue here. Tünde Wehli wrote an article for the journal on the newly discovered frescoes. After briefly describing the frescoes, she proceeds to bring analogies to the image of the Madonna. Most of these come from the north of the Alps, from France and Central Europe (esp. Bohemia), although Wehli acknowledges the Italian origins of several motifs of the fresco (such as the shape of the throne). In the conclusion of her article, Tünde Wehli dates the fresco to the last quarter of the 14th century - a date which requires a relatively modest modification in the building's chronology.

More recently, Mária Prokopp also wrote on the frescoes. She is a noted expert of the Italian connections of Hungarian medieval painting (I wrote on her theory of Botticelli in Esztergom). Her article was published in Múzeumcafé, which is a flashy magazine about museums, and is not really known for serious studies on medieval art. Prokopp's article can be read in the online version of Múzeumcafé vol. 5, 23 (2011 június/július), and also here. A somewhat more detailed version of Prokopp's article is available in the journal Magyar Sion (2010/2, full text available here). Prokopp's study also appeared in the journal of the Budapest History Museum (Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 36, 2010),  in what can be considered as its definitive version to this date. A pdf-version of the Hungarian-language article is available here; there is a brief German summary at the end. Prokopp cites mainly Italian analogies from the beginning of the Trecento, and thus dates the fresco of the Virgin and child to around 1320-1340 (the fresco of the bishop she considers even earlier, from the end of the 13th century). In explaining the significance of the frescoes, she analyses the historical importance of the church as well.

I've had no time to write anything more than some blog-length pieces on the fresco so far. My brief report on the find (essentially the same as my first two blog entries - see part I and part II) was summarized for the newsletter of the International Center of Medieval Art (April 2011 issue), while my report on Hungarian azurite was picked up by National Geographic Hungary (May 2011). Hopefully I'll get to write more about it soon!

Exhibitions on Medieval Fashion

Two different exhibitions, both dedicated to medieval fashion are open at the same time: one at the West Coast of America, the other one at the East Coast. First to open was the exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. Titled Illuminating Fashion: Dress in the Art of Medieval France and the Netherlands, the exhibition is on view from May 20 through September 4, 2011. Its curator is Roger S. Wieck, Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the Morgan Library. The exhibition coincides with the publication of Anne H. van Buren's long-awaited monograph on the subject. The book is "the first comprehensive history of fashion to be based exclusively on firmly dated or datable art. Drawing mainly upon illuminated manuscripts, this book also features panel painting, tapestry, sculpture, and early printed books produced in France and the duchy of Burgundy during the late medieval period – a time of rapid change in dress."


The website of the exhibition provides and online tour of the manuscripts on view. You can read about the exhibition in The Art Newspaper or on the Medievalists.net website.

From May 31–August 14, 2011, the exhibition Fashion in the Middles Ages is on view at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The exhibition was co-curated by Kristen Collins, associate curator of manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Margaret Scott, scholar of medieval fashion and author of the accompanying exhibition publication. You can read more about the exhibition in the press release of the Getty Museum, and you can also download an exhibition checklist (pdf).

The Medievalist.net website also reported on the exhibition.

If you can't get to the US this summer, you can also see fashion in medieval manuscripts in Paris. The gallery Les Enluminures also opened an exhibition on fashion in its Paris space in the Louvre des Antiquaires. Approximately 35 works of art are featured in “Dressing Up and Dressing Down in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Costume in Art,” from May 5 to August 25. Organized by gallery owner Sandra Hindman, the exhibition is accompanied by an online catalogue (pdf). You can get more information on this project from this video. This being a commercial gallery - you can even buy the artworks on display!

Exterior restoration of the Abbey Church of Lébény

Scaffolding at Lébény 

On my way to Vienna today (where my main goal was to see the exhibition on the medieval plans of the Stephansdom), I stopped at the Romanesque Abbey church of Lébény. Some alarming news emerged about the condition of the building in recent years, as photos on this Hungarian website also attest (click for 'more pictures'). Well, by now, work is well under way on the exterior restoration of the building, and almost the entire edifice is covered by a scaffolding. Heavy rain and wind prevented me to explore the building more closely, and there is also very little information available online on the ongoing restoration. Main tasks include a consolidation of the facades and the renovation of the roof of the edifice. They are also restoring the old parish building, with the intention of creating a new museum there. Work will go on throughout the summer.

Lébény, south portal 

The Benedictine Abbey of Lébény was officially founded in 1208, and it is believed that the church was  completed within a short time. Benedictine life went on with varied intensity during the Middle Ages, until the church was burned by Turkish troops in 1529, as they were marching towards the siege of Vienna. The vault of the nave was not even repaired until the Jesuits took over the church in 1631. Those knowing the history of the region will not be surprised to read that the Turkish army burned the church again in 1683, en route to another failed siege of Vienna. The building was again fixed up by the Jesuits, and finally underwent major renovation during the 1870s. 

The church of Lébény before 1872

Despite all these events, the church of Lébény can be regarded as one of the most intact Romanesque churches of Hungary. The fact that the church is still standing after 800 years is also due to those Italian stonemasons, who were sent there to dismantle the church at the time when the Ottoman Turks were advancing towards Győr. The stones of the monastery would have been needed to to repair the fortifications of Győr - but the masons did not carry out the job, saying the Lébény was the most beautiful church they have ever seen.

You can judge for yourself by looking at photographs at the following links:

Photos of the art history department of Pázmány Péter Catholic University

Hungarian summary of the church's history from the catalogue of the Pannonhalma exhibition on Benedictines in medieval Hungary (click on "Fotó" at the bottom of the page)

You can read on the current restoration here (in Hungarian)

Finally, here are some details of the stone carvings of the western portal seen from the lower levels of the scaffolding.