New Books on Medieval Art in Hungary

Luckily, I am able to report on more and more books published in English (or German) about the art of medieval Hungary. These books make the rich medieval heritage of Hungary available to a wide international audience - especially when we are talking about books published by western publishing companies. The books listed below deal with different aspects of medieval Hungary, and would be welcome additions to any serious library on medieval art.

The Medieval Royal Palace at Visegrád. Edited by Gergely Buzás and József Laszlovszky. Budapest, Archaeolingua, 2013

The following description was provided by the publisher:

Visegrád stands out among the medieval sites of Hungary and the royal palace complex can be regarded as one of the most important monuments for the artistic and architectural production of the royal court during the period of the late Middle Ages. The size and the complexity of the palace would in itself ensure that the Visegrád royal residence became one of the principal sites of Hungarian medieval archaeology.

The palace was continuously built, altered and enlarged for two hundred years, and emerged as a sophisticated complex of dwelling rooms, spaces of status display, ecclesiastical buildings (royal chapel and Franciscan friary), kitchens, workshops, storage buildings, gardens, loggias, balconies and fountains. Its ruination was also a long process that took three hundred years. Although this slow process caused immeasurable damage, it also helped to preserve the traces of medieval life in the monument, which in case of buildings continuously inhabited are usually swept away by modern use and later architectural changes. The Visegrád Palace, however, was not used by anyone after the Middle Ages. Its ruined buildings were not utilized for any other purpose, and so the later alterations were minimal. Its rediscovery, excavation and reconstruction has been a task of twentieth and twenty-first-century archaeology and heritage protection, and the monument provided an opportunity to study a medieval complex almost undisturbed. The excavations at the Visegrád Palace also served as one of the most significant steps in the development of medieval archaeology in Hungary.

This volume is the first comprehensive monograph on the archaeological investigations, objects, finds, reconstruction and restoration of the palace complex published in English. It is also a revised, extended and in some other parts compressed version of a volume published in Hungarian in 2010. It offers a summary of the previous and recent excavations since 1934 and the interpretation of the palace in its European archaeological and art historical context. It also contains the functional analysis of the palace complex and the discussion of the interactions between the residence and the Franciscan friary. Some chapters focus on the most important group of finds (pottery, stove tiles, worked bone material, etc.) along with their detailed catalogue.

Ivan Gerát: Legendary Scenes : An Essay on Medieval Pictorial Hagiography. Bratislava : Veda, 2014.

Published by the Institute of Art History in Bratislava, this beautifully illustrated book provides an overview of biblical and hagiographical scenes from late medieval painting from the northern regions of the Kingdom of Hungary, providing new insights into the art of the period.The introduction of the book gives an overview of the topic of the book:

"This book is devoted mainly to scenes from the lives of saints in panel paintings originally produced in the northern regions of the Kingdom of Hungary in present-day Slovakia. The form these pictures took and their rôle in cultural life was determined by various processes concerning the whole of Christian Europe. Research into these pictures necessarily crosses both modern and historical political boundaries. Around 1500 panel paintings enjoyed great popularity across Central Europe. Carefully elaborated pictures of violent or miraculous events from the lives of the heroes and heroines of the faith were placed primarily on the wings of altar retables. [...] Prior to the work of the Reformation, these pictures played a central rôle in religious and social life. They articulated many of the problems and tensions of the period, which was marked not only by internal disputes in the Christian countries, but also by growing conflict with the Ottoman Empire, which resulted in the resounding defeat of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1526 at the Battle of Mohács."

Kinga German: Sakramentsnischen und Sakramentshäuser in Siebenbürgen.  Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2014.

Kinga German's book provides an analysis and overview of 145 Late Gothic sacrament houses and sacrament niches from Transylvania, along with a catalogue of all these monuents. The analysis deals with the function of these micro-architectural elements in the context of Eucharistic worship in later medieval Transylvania. The book - based on the author's doctoral dissertation - provides the first detailed survey of these monuments. 

A look at the contents and the inside of the book is available on the website of the publisher (pdf).

Ana-Maria Gruia: Religious Representations on Stove Tiles from the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary. Cluj-Napoca, Mega, 2013.

This book, which is based on the author's doctoral dissertation defended at the Central European University in Budapest provides an iconographical analyisis of late medieval stove tiles from the Kingdom of Hungary. It is the first detailed analysis of the subject, arranged according to themes, and accompanied by a catalogue of several hunders of monuments.

The author has previosly also published a number of articles on the subject, especially in Studia Patzinakia - see for example in vol. 5, 2007 (pdf).

New exhibitions at Pannonhalma

For several decades now, the Benedictine Archabbey at Pannonhalma has also served as an important exhibition venue. Perhaps most memorable for medievalists was the 2001 exhibition dedicated to Benedictines in Medieval Hungary, and titled Paradisum plantavit. For a long time, there has been a permenant exhibition space in the abbey as well, but only a very small part of the abbey's collection was on view. This year, a new abbey museum and visitor center opened at Pannonhalma, in the former manor building belonging to the abbey. This museum is the home of a new permanent exhibition of the abbey, and includes an exhibition of medieval stone carvings from Pannonhalma, as well as a good selection from the collections of the abbey. The new space created an opportunity to display some elements of the medieval building which were previously not visible, such as elements from the 13th century cloisters of the abbey (which was rebuilt in the late 15th century). The collections of the abbey include goldsmith works, important manuscripts, a good ensemble of paintings, sculptures and liturgical objects, among other artworks. The new exhibition was arranged by Imre Takács, noted medieval art historian and the curator of major exhibition at Pannonhalma in 1996 and 2001. This collection can be browsed online as well - in a database which at the moment seems to be available only in Hungarian.

Stone carvings from Pannonhalma at the new museum

Fragments of the 13th century cloister

In 2014, visitors also get a chance to visit two intertwined exhibitions. Since March 2014 the exhibition Icons and Relics: Veneration of Images between East and West (March 21 – November 11,2014) can be visited in the in the “old” exhibition hall of the monastery. Another exhibition opened in July in the newly opened Abbey Manor Visitor Centre and Museum. Titled Image and Christianity: Visual Media in the Middle Ages (July 10 – November 11, 2014), which focuses on western European liturgical art. To cite the curator, Péter Bokody: "The aim of the exhibitions is to show to the viewer the various forms and media of image-worship in medieval Christianity. The exhibition Icons and Relics presents the intertwined history of image-worship in the East and West through a comparison of the cult of images and the cult of relics, together with the genesis of the painted panel. The exhibition Image and Christianity focuses on the same development from the perspective of the visual media in the Middle Ages, where the spread of the painted panel in the West is interpreted in the context of mosaics, stained glass, murals and book illumination. The point of intersection between the two is the Latin Sack of Constantinople in 1204, since both the intensified forms of image-worship and the visual medium of the painted panel became central in Western Christianity after that."

The exhibition "Icons and relics"

Glimpse into the exhibition "Image and Christianity"

In addition to important loans from the major museums of Hungary, the exhibitions also features a number of international loans (primarily from Austria and Croatia), providing a nice overview medieval artworks in the service of liturgy. The highlights of the exhibition Icons and Relics are the 12th century head reliquary of Saint Coloman (Benedictine Abbey, Melk), and 14th century reliquaries from Zadar. In the exhibition Image and Christianity the various medieval visual media are presented by 12th century mosaics (Museo Torcello, Torcello), 15th century stained glass windows (Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz), 14th century fresco fragments (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest), 15th century painted panels (Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest), and 11th-15th century codices, as well as ivory carvings and other works. 

Treasury of Gyöngyös parish church opens to public

The Treasury of the medieval parish church of Gyöngyös, dedicated to St. Bartholomew, reopened for visitor at the beginning of July. The Treasury - one of the richest in Hungary, after the treasuries at Esztergom and Győr cathedrals - has important medieval holdings as well. Most important in this respect are the seven late medieval chalices made around 1500, probably in a workshop in Upper Hungary, all decorated with a special filigree ornament.

The recent history of the treasury is quite interesting: the treasures were hidden in 1944, and were only recovered in 1967. The objects were later put on display, but a number of them got stolen in 2012. These five Baroque objects were soon recovered by the police, but unfortunately, in a dismembered state. However, as of now, all of the objects are on view in the newly created exhibition room in the parish building, the so-called Szent Korona House. In addition to the chalices, the Treasury also includes a number of other medieval objects, as well as a large number of Baroque liturgical objects, including reliquiaries, monstrances and church vestments. A number of paintings, sculptures and a significant library round out the collection. Visitors can also see two specialised conservation workshops (for goldsmith works and for textiles). More information can be found on the new website of the parish (which is still being developed). You can also read more about the recent history of the treasures in this article (in Hungarian).

Source of images: here and here.

News from Hungarian Museums

Medieval and Renaissance tapestries on view at Esztergom

Calvary
Tournai, late 15th century
Esztergom, Christian Museum 

An exhibition of tapestries has been on view at the Christian Museum in Esztergom since May.  The Museum holds a significant collection of tapestries, and together with the co-organizer - the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest - they have put on display a good selection of early tapestries.The present exhibition entitled ‘Historical and Contemporary Tapestries in Hungary’ is presents the past and present of European woven tapestry, illuminating the connections also. From the perspective of a medievalists, the first section of the exhibition is the most interesting, which is titled ‘Flemish Tapestries with Biblical and Mythological Themes from the Museum of Applied Arts and the Christian Museum’. Here one of the genre’s most significant traditions – the Flemish – is represented by Oudenaarde and Tournai tapestries kept at the Christian Museum and by the 18th-century Brussels tapestry ‘Mercury Hands Over the Infant Bacchus to the Nymphs’, a work preserved at the Museum of Applied Arts. It is through this work that the rest of the exhibition - showing contemporary works - is connected to historic tapestries, via the "Web of Europe" project. The exhibition can be visited until the end of August, and is accompanied by a catalogue.

Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest purchases an early Renaissance carving

The blog of Hungarian museum journal MúzeumCafé reported that the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest had purchased an important French early Renaissance carving at an auction last week (June 5). The stone relief was once part of the famed collection of Rudolf Bedő, and was auctioned at Kieselbach Gallery and Auction House. Another medieval sculpture from the collection - a Burgundian Madonna - was also offered for sale. This news comes just a few months after the long overdue re-opening of the permanent exhibition of the Old Sculpture Collection of the museum (see my report from December) - the piece is clearly a welcome addition to this important collection.

I will list a few smaller exhibitions here as well - with link to Hungarian-language reports

• After an absence of several years, the Roman and Medieval lapidarium reopened at the Balaton Museum in Keszthely, more info here.
  
  
• An exhibition of a medieval silver treasure hoard from Poland - the Hoard of Głogów - is on view at the Déri Museum in Debrecen, along with an important silver hoard from 13th century Hungary.
  
  
• Finally, the exhibition about Queen Gertude - on which I already published a report - is on view for a few more weeks at the Lower Castle (Solomon-Tower) of the King Matthias Museum at Visegrád.
  
  

Exhibitions of Holy Roman Emperors

The big exhibition organized to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the Council of Constance opened last weekend at Constance. One of the central figures of the exhibition is Emperor Sigismund, who was also the King of Hungary. However, Germany celebrates a number of other Holy Roman Emperors this year with major exhibitions - here is an overview.

Charlemagne (Karl der Grosse) - First on the list is the first emperor of the Middle Ages, Charlemagne. He died in 814, so 1200 years ago. To commemorate this event, three major exhibitions will take place in Aachen in 2014, dedicated to the culture and courtly life of Charlemagne. The trio of exhibitions will be opened on 19th June 2014 by their official patron, the Federal President. They will run from 20th June to 21st September 2014 in three prestigious venues – the Coronation Hall in Aachen’s Town Hall, the Centre Charlemagne on the Katschhof, and the Cathedral Treasury – and will present the impact, art and culture of Charlemagne. You can find more information on the three exhibitions and the three venues, as well as on the Route Charlemagne Aachen on the exhibition website. You can also have a look at this press release announcing the exhibitions (pdf).

The second emperor to be commemorated is Louis IV, called the Bavarian (Ludwig der Bayer), who ruled from 1314 until 1347. 'Ludwig the Bavarian. We are emperor!’ will be the title of the upcoming Bavarian Regional Exhibition which will tell the fascinating story of the first member of the House of Wittelsbach to ascend the imperial throne in Regensburg. The occasion is the 700th jubilee of Ludwig’s coronation as King of the Romans in 1314 (he was crowned Emperor in 1328). For the first time a large exhibition will focus on this important ruler of the late Middle Ages. The exhibition grants the visitor an insight into the history of the Bavarian duke, German king and Holy Roman Emperor and the time between 1300 and 1350, during which Bavaria became the center of Europe. The exhibition will be at the Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte in Regensburg, and will be on view from May 19th until November 2, 2014. The churches and smaller museums of the town will also serve as exhibition venues.

Finally, I would like to return to the exhibition in Constance (Konstanz),  which is on view from April 27 until September 21, 2014. 2014 marks the 600th anniversary of the beginning of the Council of Constance. The Council was a major event in church politics which made Constance the center of European politics and a meeting place of European cultures in the years 1414-1418. Baden-Württemberg commemorates the anniversary of the world event of the late Middle Ages with a Great State Exhibition. The exhibition was organized by the Badische Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe. The main figure of the Council was Emperor Sigimund, who ruled as King of Hungary from 1387, and was elected King of the Romans in 1411. He ruled until 1437, and was crowned Emperor only in 1433. The exhibition is on view in the actual building in which events took place in Constance. I will report on the exhibition and the accompanying publications in more detail soon (and you can also read my preliminary report). A website has been set up for the series of events during the next four years, and also for the exhibition itself.

800 Years of Ják Abbey

Fresco of St. George at Ják, c. 1256 

This weekend - the weekend after Saint George's Day - mark the 800th anniversary of the foundation of the Benedictine monastery of Ják. It is known that the monastery was established by Márton "the Great" comes from the Ják kindred some time before 1223 (when its abbot was first mentioned). Circumstantial evidence puts the date of this foundation to the year 1214. The abbey church was dedicated to St. George, who was a favoured saint in Hungary during the late Árpádian period, and one particularly liked by the Ják kindred. The abbey church, built in late Romanesque style, was finally dedicated in 1256. Construction thus lasted for a few decades, and was not without interruption. The church is one of the most monumental examples of early thirteenth century monasteries erected by noble families in Hungary - other examples include Lébény or Türje. It was built as a three-aisled basilica, with a massive western part with two towers and a gallery between them. Construction started on the northern side, then continued on the southern side in the second phase. After a change of plan it was decided to vault the entire church, and it was in this phase that the western area was also built. This phase of the work - during the 1230s - is characterised by strong connections with the building workshop of Bamberg cathedral. In the end, the church was not fully finished as planned - work was interrupted either by the Mongol invasion (1241-42), or by the death of Márton comes in 1250. The central and southern aisle of the nave was not vaulted, only covered with a flat wooden ceiling - but the church was considered finished by the 1256 consecration. The western portal of the church, as well as its additional carved decoration, and also its painted decoration make the church one of the most important 13th century monuments from Hungary. The rotunda standing next to the abbey church was also built in the 13th century, around 1260.

Ják abbey church. From Wikimedia Commons

The church was restored several times, most extensively between 1896-1906. The massive stone spires of the towers, and the vault of the central aisle were added at this time. Literature on the church is extensive, especially in Hungarian and German.  You can find some photos on this website, including images taken before the late 19th century restoration.

More recently, the exterior of the church was cleaned. With the current festivities celebrating eight centuries of the Abbey, the goal of the organizers is to raise money for the restoration of the frescoes in the church, especially the fresco of St. George painted on the wall of the main apse. You can read my study on these frescoes, from a 2001 catalogue dedicated to Benedictines in medieval Hungary (the study is in Hungarian).

The western portal before 1896

Other online resources, mainly in Hungarian:

Technical analysis of the sculptures of the west portal

Photos in Wikimedia Commons and on the website of Pázmány Péter University.

Study and photos on the templom.hu website, data on the műemlékem.hu website.

Corvinian manuscripts on view in Budapest

The Polybios-Corvina at the exhibition. Photo: National Széchényi Library 

Four precious manuscripts from the famed library of King Matthias Corvinus, the Bibliotheca Corviniana are on view for a short time at the National Széchényi Library in Budapest. The four manuscripts are the ones which were returned to Hungary by Sultan Abdülaziz in 1869, so the exhibition is titled: The Sultan's Gift. Four Corvinian Manuscripts from the Serai.

The exhibition takes us back not only to the period when King Matthias (1458-1490) established the first major Humanistic library of Europe outside Italy, but also to the 19th century, when Hungarian aristocrats and scholars carried out a long-term struggle to reclaim at least a few volumes from the library of Matthias Corvinus. Works in the library numbered 2500 at the death of the king, while several manuscripts were still unfinished for him in Florence (these entered the library of the Medicis). Soon after his death, this library began to lose volumes - first western Humanists started taking volumes, as gifts from King Wladislas II (who was less interested in books). Then during the period when Hungary started battling the Ottoman Empire, and was beset by internal strife (between the Battle of Mohács in 1526, and the capture of Buda in 1541), this process accelerated. A lot of the volumes were then taken to Istanbul when the castle of Buda fell to the Turks. As a result of this long process, by the early 19th century, not a single Corvinian manuscript was known within Hungary. The first manuscript to return to Hungary (more specifically, to Transylvania), was a Tacitus volume acquired by Sámuel Teleki for his library at Marosvásárhely in 1805 (the manuscript today is at the Beinecke Library of Yale University). Several attempts after this were unsuccesful to acquire a Corvina manuscript for the nation's capital, Buda. Although the Dialogues of Ludovicus Carbo, a rather modest early Corvinian manuscript, was donated to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1840, this failed to create significant interest (but now it is available in a digital facsimile edition, with commentary). Finally, attention was focused to Istanbul, in hopes that some of the manuscripts can be identified there. In 1862, Ferenc Kubinyi, Arnold Ipolyi and Imre Henszlmann finally identifed some manuscripts in Istanbul, at the library of the imperial palace. Then in 1869, on occasion of the opening of the Suez canal, the sultan gave four volumes to Emperor and King Franz Joseph I. The ruler then duly gave the manuscripts the National Museum (from which they entered the National Library along with other manuscript material). The in 1877, Sultan Abdul Hamid II decided to donate a further 35 manuscripts to Budapest, which entered the University Library (it soon turned out that only about 13 of these manuscripts originate from the library of King Matthias - for more information, read the study of Csaba Csapodi on the history of the library).

The title page of the Trapezuntius-Corvina. National Széchényi Library 

The present exhibition features the four manuscripts returned to Hungary in 1869. The manuscripts are the following (with link to digital facsimiles):

Cod. Lat. 234: The Historiae of Plolybius, a Florentine codex dating between 1450-1470

Cod. Lat. 241: Plautus: Comediae, a Florentine codex from before 1459

Cod. Lat. 121: A Neapolitan manuscript of Augustinus' De civitate Dei

Cod. Lat. 281: The Rhetorica of Trapezuntius, a Latin translation of the work in a manuscript made in Buda in the 1480s.

The binding of the Augustinus-Corvina, photo taken during
 installation. Source: National Library Facebook-page

The exhibition was organized in connection with the Budapest Book Festival, the guest of honor of which is Turkey. Becauses of this, a few Turkish manuscripts are also on view, as well as the early 16th century genealogical roll of Turkish emperors (Genealogia Turcorum imperatorum) by Felix Petancius. The books are only on view until May 6th. The curator of the exhibition is Edina Zsupán - she is also featured in a well-documented article about the installation process (in Hungarian).

To receive more information on the Corvinian manuscripts, please take a look at these pages of my website and blog: New research on the Corvinian Library (with links to full-text publications), and my page on digitized Hungarian manuscripts, with direct links to over 100 Corvinian manuscripts. You can also get a lot of more photos on the Facebook page of the library.