Italy and Hungary in the Renaissance (Book review)

Back in 2007, a major conference was organized at Villa I Tatti (The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence), dedicated to Humanism and early Renaissance art in the Kingdom of Hungary. The conference aimed to give an overview of the field, focusing naturally on connections between Italy and Hungary. In August 2011, the long-awaited volume of the these studies has been published by Villa I Tatti, edited by Péter Farbaky and Louis A. Waldman. The conference, the research trip to Hungary which followed it, and the volume together represent the crowning achievement of the role of I Tatti as "a bridge between Hungary and Florence in the world of humanistic scholarship for three decades" - as emphasized by director Joseph Connors in the Foreword.

It also has to be pointed out that in 2008, an entire series of exhibitions and events were organized in Hungary in the framework of the so-called Renaissance Year. Three exhibitions, in particular, have to be mentioned here: the Budapest History Museum organized a large international exhibition dedicated to the rule of King Matthias in Hungary. Titled Matthias Corvinus, the King, the exhibition was accompanied by a large catalogue, also edited by Péter Farbaky with Enikő Spekner, Katalon Szende and András Végh (published in an English version as well). A large number of the participants of the 2007 Villa I Tatti conference also contributed to this catalogue - where naturally actual physical objects are in focus. The two publications thus nicely complement each other. Two smaller exhibitions focused on more special topics: the exhibition at the National Széchényi Library, titled  A Star in the Raven's Shadow, was dedicated to János Vitéz, archbishop of Esztergom, and the beginnings of Hungarian Humanism in the middle of the 15th century. The exhibition of the Museum of Applied Arts - The Dowry of Beatrice - examined the origins of Italian majolica at the court of King Matthias, focusing on the magnificent Corvinus-plates made in Pesaro. (To get the English-language catalogues, search for item nos. 58713 and 113069 at www.artbooks.com).

Temperance,
15th c. fresco at the Palace of Esztergom

However, the conference organized at I Tatti  was the event met with most extensive response. This was largely due to two of the the papers presented at the conference and a press conference held by the Hungarian Cultural Minister in Rome, announcing the findings of these two papers. At the conference, Zsuzsanna Wierdl and Mária Prokopp presented their theory concerning one of the 15th century frescoes at the castle of Esztergom, attributing it to the young Botticelli - a subject I have written about elsewhere on this blog.

Naturally, there is much more to the book than these sensational claims. The volume makes the lectures presented at the conference available in an edited format. The description of the book at the Harvard University Press website gives a good overview of its main topic:

New medieval art websites VI.

A number of very useful online image databases have been launched recently, dedicated to late medieval / northern Renaissance painting. Also, access to digitized medieval manuscripts is getting more and more easy. Here is a selection - the following descriptions are based on texts given on the websites themselves.

Museum Mayer van den Berg

 Antwerp 

Flemish primitives - This website was created by the association of Flemish art museums, The Flemish Art Collection, and so is a collaborative project of Belgian museums in Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges. The goal is to present a website that is a reference point for the painted arts in the Burgundian Netherlands in the 15th century and early-16th century. Visitors can search paintings from Flemish museums or follow thematic collection presentations. It seems that over 400 paintings are available in the database now - I hope that image management and viewing options will improve later on.

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 

A lot more information and much more images are provided by the newly launched Cranach Digital Archive (cda). This is "an interdisciplinary collaborative research resource, providing access to art historical, technical and conservation information on paintings by Lucas Cranach (c.1472 - 1553) and his workshop. The repository presently provides information on more than 400 paintings including c.5000 images and documents from 19 partner institutions." The Cranach Digital Archive is a joint initiative of the Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf and Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences / Cologne University of Applied Sciences, with several partner institutions. It is highly recommended (via 1100sor).

University of Pennsylvania 

More and more medieval manuscripts are also being made available online. Last Fall, the University of Pennsylvania finished the digitization of their manuscripts collections, making the books (including over a thousand medieval and renaissance manuscripts) available at the Penn in Hand website. The University of Chicago is providing online access to the Goodspeed manuscript collection, comprising 68 early Greek, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian, Arabic, and Latin manuscripts ranging in date from the 5th to the 19th centuries. Yale (Beinecke Library) and Harvard (Houghton Library) have been providing access to their early codices for quite some time now. Meanwhile, it has been announced that the union catalogue of medieval manuscripts in America is returning to the University of California, Berkeley. It is now at the url: http://www.digital-scriptorium.org

Hungarian Academy of Sciences 

While we are on the subject of manuscripts, I would like to call attention to a special resource from Hungary (it is not new, but perhaps not too many people know about it). It is the Kaufmann-collection of medieval Hebrew manuscripts in the Oriental Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The website provides an introductory study on the collector, Dávid Kaufmann and his collection, and the complete facsimile of five manuscripts. All of this is available in Hungarian, English and even Spanish. The manuscripts include the famous Kaufmann-Haggadah, originating from 14th century Catalonia, which has already been published in a print facsimile.

Pope Sylvester and the regalia of St. Stephen (Happy New Year!)

December 31st is the feast day of St. Sylvester, that is Pope Sylvester I (314-335), well known as the recipient of the Donatio Constantini, in which Emperor Constantine transferred power over Rome to the pope. The document is actually an 8th century forgery, as already proved by Nicholas of Cusa and Lorenzo Valla in the 15th century. Pope Sylvester also carried out several miracles - for example resurrecting a bull which was killed by a sorcerer during their contest or defeating a dragon which terrorized the populace of Rome. You can read his legend (from the Legenda Aurea) here. The Hungarian Angevin Legendary illustrates his story in six scenes (all in the main body of the codex, which is at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana); I am including the two scenes mentioned above.

Pope Sylvester revives a bull
BAV Ms. Vat.Lat. 8541, f. 72r

Pope Sylvester pulls a dragon out of the lake
BAV Ms. Vat.Lat. 8541, f. 73v

In this post, however, I would also like to commemorate another Sylvester, Pope Sylvester II (reigned 999-1003), that is, the scholar Gerbert d'Aurillac. Gerbert became pope with the support of Emperor Otto III, and played a crucial role in establishing the Kingdom of Hungary as the newest Christian monarchy of Europe. He established the first archbishopric of Hungary at Esztergom, which became the center of the Hungarian church. The pope also approved the coronation of Hungary's newly baptized ruling prince, István - who became Hungary's first king. According to early chronicles and legends, the pope sent a crown to Stephen for this event. The coronation of St. Stephen took place on January 1st, 1001 (by most accounts). For his role in establishing Hungary as a Christian Kingdom, Stephen was canonized in 1083.

A Nativity Tapestry from Brussels (Merry Christmas!)

I would like to wish Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all my readers with a detail from the most beautiful late medieval tapestry in the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest. The central field of the tapestry depicts the Nativity, or more specifically, the Adoration of the baby Jesus - these beautiful angels hover over the scene. The Nativity image is of a type which became widespread upon the influence of late medieval mysticism: the newborn Saviour lying on the ground is adored by his mother the Virgin Mary and angels. On either side a sibyl is standing holding a scroll with the text of her prophecy in her hands. In the top left corner the Adoration of the Magi, in the right corner the Annunciation are seen. (see the full image below).

An exact analogy of the tapestry can be found in the Museo Diocesano in Trento, as the first piece of a seven-part cycle depicting Christ’s Passion. That cycle was purchased by Bernardo Cles, the prince-archbishop of Trento (1514–1539) from Joris van Lickau, a merchant of Antwerp in 1531. The tapestries were made earlier: the piece showing the Carrying of the Cross features the date 1507, and in another one the name of the leader of the Brussels weaving workshop, Pieter van Aelst (ca. 1450 – 1531/1533) can also be read.

The origins of the images on the tapestry can be traced to 15th century Flemish painting: the Annunciation follows the popular composition of Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400 – 1464), while the central depiction was influenced, among others, by Robert Campin (ca. 1375 – 1444). The prototype for the Adoration is a print in Albrecht Dürer’s engraved cycle of the life of the Virgin (about 1500 – 1502). Based on the stylistic features of the tapestry, the composition can be attributed to Jan van Roome of Brussels, court painter of Margaret of Austria (demonstrable between 1498 and 1521), who is well-known from contemporary sources. The tapestry comes to the museum from the Cathedral of Győr - and probably originates from bishop Demeter Náprágyi’s (1559 – 1619) bequest in 1619. In 1914 Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, purchased it and donated it to the Society of the Friends of the Museum. (Money from the sale went for the renovation of the cathedral.)

Nativity Tapestry, Brussels, c. 1510. Pieter van Aelst’s workshop, Jan van Roome’s (?) design

Wool, silk and metal thread, woven with gobelin technique, H.: 275 cm W.: 260 cm

Budapest, Museum of Applied Arts, Inv.no.: 18328

(More details below!)

In memoriam Miklós Boskovits

Miklós Boskovits in 2005 

I learned with sadness of the passing of Miklós Boskovits, perhaps the most eminent art historian of Hungarian origin. The sad news was announced by Villa I Tatti in Florence, where Boskovits had been a fellow back in the 1960s, a short time after he had left Hungary. Miklós Boskovits, a university professor at the University of Florence and researcher at the Kunsthistorisches Institut was the leading expert of Florentine (and Italian) late medieval and early Renaissance painting. He was the author of a number of collection catalogues of early Italian paintings for major museums - including the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (1988), the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection (2001), and most recently, the National Gallery of Art, Washington (2003). He wrote the most extensive monograph on Florentine painting of the late 14th century (1975), and took over the editing of the Corpus of Florentine Painting, started by Richard Offner in 1930 - authoring two recent volumes of the series: about the Origins of Florentine Painting and, more recently (in 2007) about the Mosaics of the Baptistery of Florence. He also worked on a number of major exhibition projects, and served as the editor of Arte Cristiana.
He was 76 years old.

Miklós Boskovits received his training as an art historian in Hungary, at Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest. Emigrating to Italy, he joined the ranks of a number of eminent Hungarian researchers working abroad. Listing only those working on Florentine art, we have to mention Frederick Antal, author of Florentine Painting and its Social Background (1948), and two great Michelangelo-scholars: Johannes Wilde and Charles de Tolnay. Throughout his career, Boskovits maintained close contacts with his home country, and was always willing to help his fellow Hungarians. He was instrumental in establishing a program at Villa I Tatti, providing a grant to art historians from East-Central Europe (a program benefiting a lot of Hungarian scholars). He was always very helpful to me, as well: consulting with me as I was writing my dissertation; helping a lot as a member of the advisory board of the 2006 Sigismundus-exhibition, and advising me in my research on Masolino, during my I Tatti fellowship last year. His death was unexpected, and he will be greatly missed.

You can browse the books written or edited by him at Kubikat - where you can also find his other publications numbering in the hundreds.


Update: I would like to call attention to a few more obituaries of Boskovits:


Notice in Il Giornale dell'Arte
Neville Rowley in The Art Tribune
Obituary in the Storia dell'Arte blog - with links to several newspaper articles
Finally, the brief news which appeared in the Hungarian press

Honoring Miklós Mojzer

It is a long-standing tradition in Hungary's major art museums to celebrate on St. Nicholas's day: it is the name day of Miklós Mojzer, the doyen of Hungarian museologists, retired director of the Museum of Fine Arts. Yesterday a special celebration was held in his honor at the Hungarian National Gallery - the 80 year old Mojzer was honored by a special issue of Hungary's prestigious art history journal, Művészettörténeti Értesítő. Miklós Mojzer worked in all of Hungary's museum with major holdings of Old Masters: he started his career at the Christian Museum of Esztergom, and then worked at the Old Hungarian collection of the Museum of Fine Arts. When in 1974, this collection joined the rest of the Hungarian National Gallery in its new building - the former royal palace in Buda castle - Mojzer went with the collection, and became its head from 1977 to 1989. In this period this collection - encompassing works of  Hungarian and Central European art from the 11th century to the Late Baroque - became one of the most significant such ensembles of the region. To get a glimpse of the relevant artwork, you can browse the website of the museum - the first four groups on this page of collection highlights belong to the Old Hungarian Collection. In this period, Mojzer was also the editor of Művészettörténeti Értesítő, the journal of the Association of Hungarian Archaeology and Art History. 

From 1989 until 2004, Miklós Mojzer was the director of the Museum of Fine Arts, leading this institution into the 21st century by starting the reconstruction and underground expansion of the museum, and organizing a series of highly important exhibitions. The collections of the museum were also greatly expanded during his tenure. Miklós Mojzer remained active after his retirement, publishing a number of important articles - including ones dedicated to his lifelong research-interest, Master MS. His findings will be the topic of another blog post - it is enough to say now that Mojzer proposed a solution to this enigmatic master of late Gothic paintings, whose chief works are at the Christian Museum and at the Hungarian National Gallery (the latter providing the sole illustration to today's post). A selection of his publications is listed in the Kubikat catalogue.

The new issue of Művészettörténeti Értesítő contains studies from the general field of research of Mojzer: studies on late medieval altarpieces, on Hungarian medieval painting and sculpture, on Renaissance and Baroque painting and similar subjects. Edited by Anna Jávor and Árpád Mikó, the studies in this special issue were written by the best Hungarian researchers in these fields, many of whom had worked together with Miklós Mojzer for many years. I would like to wish him many more productive years and a long life!

More info here or here

Saint Nicholas Day

St. Nicholas providing dowries at night to the three virgins.  

Panel form the St. Nicholas altar of Jánosrét (Lúčky), c. 1480-90.  

Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest 

This is the central part of the altarpiece, with St. Nicholas in the shrine of the altar. 

Happy Saint Nicholas Day! 

More info here or here