Miklós Izsó was the founder of the Hungarian romantic sculpture. Between 1864 and 1873, he created several portrait sculptures of the Zrínyi family, including Miklós IV Zrínyi, the poet and general Miklós VII Zrínyi, Ilona Zrínyi and Francis II Rákóczi. This article aims to present the circumstances of the conception of these historically important Zrínyi monuments, the marble bust by Izsó depicting? the poet and, its surviving copies and last but not least the recently discovered plaster copy. The authors also describe how the vision of the Minister of Religion and Education at that time, József Eötvös, on memorial sculpture, cultural heritage and national memory emerges from the analysis of this group of artefacts. In connection to the Zrínyi sculptures, the authors discuss the perception of Miklós Zrínyi in the mid-19 th century.
The subject of our research is the ornamentation en graved into the chalk-and-size ground and then gilded on the back and sides of the altar shrine, on the predella, and on the background of the wing paintings, as well as the realistically painted patterns of the clothes and dra peries on the wing paintings. Here the textile design was applied using a commercially available, popular and widely used aid contrived on the basis of Italian silk and velvet fabrics, the so-called perforated tracing paper (Lochpaus). Since in this case it is not only a question of the artistic elaboration of these details, but also of their mechanical transfer and reproduction, it is necessary to determine (if sufficient data are available) the criteria which, in addition to stylistic identification, can be used to establish the identity of the master or workshop (deck ungsgleich, i.e. overlapping identity, where the designs superimposed on each other on the film do not show sig nificant differences, or the degree of difference in detail is acceptable for related or similar categories), and which indicate the distribution of the design in question. The complete catalogue of patterns that is planned and will be compiled in the future will add another aspect to the European connections of medieval Hungarian winged al tarpiece art, in addition to the stylistic connections, and will also spectacularly demonstrate the domestic distri bution of textile patterns. In the rich foreign literature on the subject, an important methodological precedent and aid to our research is the catalogue of textile samples of Swabian winged altars collected by the staff of the Württembergisches Landes-museum in Stuttgart in 1996. The samples were drawn directly from the artefacts on transparent plastic film, indicating the differently textured surfaces, as this method is the most accurate for comparison. The fragmentation of the memorial material in Hungary due to the destruction of the major artistic centres and the central part of the country by the Turkish battles does not allow for large-scale conclusions, a large “corpus” like that of Stuttgart cannot be created. What can be determined in most cases is only the spread and popularity of the given textile. The fabric samples illustrated in this way are a good addition to the fragmentary material in textile collections, and at the same time provide important data for research into the history of costume and interior design, as well as trade relations. A review of selected foreign and detailed Hungarian literature also reveals the specific situation of research on the textile patterns depicted on medieval Hungarian winged altarpieces using various techniques - painting, engraving, etc. This is also confirmed by the analysis of the group of patterns which were widely and long used in Europe and which appear on three altarpieces made in the workshop of the Master of Jánosrét. This small collection can provide an important contribution to this research topic, complementing the rich catalogue of samples collected so far.
Veneration of the catacomb saints was a new trend of religious devotion in the 17 th century. The paper reports on the examined group of catacomb saints that first arrived in the Hungarian Kingdom, the so-called “ten holy martyrs” kept in Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia), their locations, changes, and their reliquaries.
The detailed scientific examination of the late Gothic Madonna statue of the Franciscan friary of Șumuleu-Ciuc (Csíksomlyó) took place between 2009 and 2015. This work involved the careful cleaning of the sculpture and the detailed technical examination of the piece, which included the endoscopic detection of hard-to-reach external surfaces and the inaccessible parts of the interior of the statue, sampling and the determination and radiocarbon dating of these tiny wood samples, as well as the careful collection of written sources and old representations. The statue appears first in written sources at the beginning of the 17 th century. In these years it was not placed on the main altar yet but it was part of a side-altar. It can be assumed that the statue of more than a man’s size (the total height of the statue without the baroque crown is 210 cm) was originally a masterpiece in a church of an unidentified Transylvanian urban settlement, as the main figure of a winged altar, carried later to ȘumuleuCiuc (Csíksomlyó), which remained firmly Catholic during and after the Reformation. The large, spherical pedestal of the statue, representing the universe, was reworked in the modern age in a modified form. Apart from that, we did not find traces of later rejuvenation on the sculpture surface. Likewise, we did not see any signs of the hypothetic burning of the statue in the 17 th century. The original coloring of the sculpture overlaid (repainted?) in the 19 th century has been determined (specified?) at several points; that was also confirmed by an oil painting from 1747 documenting the original coloring. The Virgin’s temples and neck reveal numerous traces of small pins and needles, which is a sign of the early modern dressing of the statue. The details of the dressing appear in 17 th century written sources; more details can be found among the items listed in the 18 th century inventories of the sacristy (dresses, veils, precious metal jewelry, crowns, jewels). The actual/present crown of Madonna and the little Jesus comes from the second half of the 17 th century. We have connected the statue of Madonna with two smaller statues of St. Barbara and St. Catherine at the Szek ler Museum of Ciuc. It is assumed that these three sculptures took part in the construction of the same medieval wing altar. The radiocarbon examination of the samples taken from the backs of the smaller statues from the beginning of the 16 th century gave considerably earlier 15 th century values than the real date of carvings, which only proves that these thick trees were of considerable size in the mid-15 th century. The results of the radiocarbon examination of the canvas that was used to base the Madonna statue showed 1426–1452 as its origin time.
Antal Hekler was a decisive figure of Hungarian art historiography in the interwar period. He occupied important offices as the heir to the country’s then only university department of art history (1918–1940), that is, the successor to Gyula Pasteiner; chief editor of the Archaeologiai Értesítő (1923–1940) also carrying art historical writings; the vice president of the National Archaeo-logical and Anthropological Society (later Hungarian Archaeological and Art Historical Society) (1920–1928); founder and editor of the bilingual Henszlmann-lapok (1927–1930); member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1920: corresponding, 1934: ordinary member). He was a close kin and shared deep intellectual orientation with the decisive cultural minister of the era, Kunó Klebelsberg. The accidentally surviving private letter (written by Hekler to Klebelsberg on 17 July 1921) allows a glimpse of this relationship. As there is a lot of relevance for the history of the study of art history in the letter, it is worth making it public. They tried to revive and normalize the cultural life of an impoverished, internationally isolated Hungary after the lost war, in which process Hekler was assigned an important role. Thanks to his links to the ministry, he arranged scholarships, channels of publication, sometimes jobs for his students (Andor Pigler, János Kapossy, later Jolán Balogh, Anna Zádor and many others).
The Matthias Fountain is the main attraction in the Hunyadi Courtyard of the Royal Palace in Buda Castle. From the beginning, its creators wanted to evoke the figure of the great ruler, closely linked to the castle’s historical past, and at the same time to “capture a scene from the life of this gallant and popular king”. The theme chosen for Alajos Strobl’s work was Matthias’ hunting and romance in the Vértes Mountains, the story of Beautiful Ilonka, perpetuated by Mihály Vörösmarty’s poem. Its predecessor was an earlier ornamental fountain Miklós József Esterházy had commissioned for the courtyard of Tata Castle. The unrealized fountain was to have featured Matthias in hunting clothes and Beautiful Ilonka as a fairy of the springs. While working on the Matthias Fountain for the royal palace, Strobl had the opportunity to further elaborate on the design, but in the new context the fountain also had the function of a historical monument, and he had to reconcile the hunting and the poetic moments of the legend of Ilonka the Beautiful with the image of the great monarch, which the monumental art of late historicism was shaping at the time and which was also embodied in the decoration and architecture of the royal palace itself. This image is closely linked up with the ideological changes at the end of the century, the redefinition of the nation’s position and role within the monarchy, and the tendencies of ethnic-cultural homogenization emphasizing the civilizational superiority and assimilative capacity of the Hungarian people. The memory of Matthias, who was always held in high esteem in Hungarian historical memory, also acquired new significance from the point of view of national self-esteem, since he was a strong-handed king of a populous country of predominantly Hungarian ethnicity, capable of conquests, during whose reign Hungary was able to play a dominant role as a regional power in the area and in Europe. The choice of the hunting scene was partly motivated by the memory of Matthias’s hunting grounds close by, which were often mentioned not only in scientific works, but also in popular publications on local history, hunting and tourism in the period. However, in keeping with the iconographic tradition of the hunting monarch, the sculptural group – going beyond the historical genre scene – also became a memorial to the great king, depicting and glorifying the virtues of his reign in the image of the skilful hunter who took noble prey. Matthias’s humanist contemporaries described him as handsome and virile, but the positivist historical research of the last third of the 19th century gave a disappointing picture of the king’s appearance, physique and features: they lacked Hungarian character and beauty. Artists who ventured into representing the historical past faced similar challenges to the moot points of the “Hungarian face” debate going on in ethnography and anthropology at the turn of the century. In terms of contemporary expectations of the Hungarian type and its expression as a reflection of national character, the Toldi figure in the Arany memorial was well received, and Strobl also reflected on the ideals of body politics associated with the modern sports movements and the emerging ideology of health and beauty. Compared to athletics, hunting is a centuries-old, aristocratic sport with historical associations, still the most popular sport of the ruling class and political elite at the end of the century, and therefore the holders of power could actually recognize themselves in the sculptural representations on the Matthias Fountain. Strobl modelled the king’s features on the head of the Bautzen statue of Matthias, while idealising and rejuvenating the king’s appearance. At the same time, by giving his face more angular and defined features, he emphasised both his youth and his mature masculinity. He modelled the splendid figure in a pose reminiscent of the contrapposto and arm position of Donatello’s and Verrocchio’s bronze David, further reinforcing the impression of a vigorous young stalwart. The obvious reference of the figure of Matthias to Florentine quattrocento art is a typical manifestation of the historicizing process, “historical art”, the purpose and content of which was explained suggestively by Miklós Szmrecsányi. He defined its creation as the mission of those artists who were capable of creating works that “revived the glorious traditions of the Hungarians, their glorious past under their national kings, in the spirit and language of their perished memories”. He also warned that the artistic endeavour should not be limited to “the recollection of external appearances, forced period accuracy, costumes and other archaeological bric-à-brac”, in objective detail, that is. Strobl, of course, immersed himself with relish in creating the characters, clothing and props of the king and his entourage. The richness of detail in the accessories must also have been inspired by quattrocento models, such as Donatello cramming the armour and saddle-cloth of the mercenary general Gattamelata in a similar manner. The most spectacular of the secondary figures is the Master of the Hunt, whose waistcoat bears a very similar embroidery pattern to the bone cover of the National Museum’s Hunyadi crossbow depicting a deer hunt, and whose costume is a mixture of elements from the Conquest-period and from folklore. The figure can almost entirely be circumambulated, and Strobl has connected the pose, which can be derived from ancient sculptures ( Apollo Belvedere ), with a distinctly spiral structure. The Master of Hounds, also almost entirely in the round on a rock near the viewer’s space, is a figure that takes its cues from the gigantic figure of the Danube in the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona in Rome. Outside the natural setting, on the left, on an independent architectural pedestal stands the Falconer, whose stance, together with his straight, rigid spine, his head raised with a phlegmatic expression on his face emanates detachment and serenity. Moving far away from the first version of the Tata fountain plan, Ilonka the Beautiful has clearly become a secondary character in the ensemble. She is no longer a nude fairy of the springs, but Strobl has given her a nymph-like look with a shock of long hair, simple sleeveless dress with front laces and bare legs. In 19th-century depictions, the sylvan nymphs are often depicted as erotic seductresses, captivating the hearts of the men who chance upon them or tantalising the satyrs who catch sight of them. Strobl has tried to recreate something of the nebulous love story in Vörösmarty’s poem, in which the forest is the scene of the lovers’ encounter and of erotic magic, rendered with balladic condensation. By depicting the king as a young man in love and Ilonka as a nymph-like, almost mythical creature, the sculptural group preserves something of the lyrical-romantic thread of the story, but the representation of historical reality undoubtedly marginalises it. Here, Ilonka is more of an attribute, a side character in a male-dominated world and history, an object of desire and seduction, a “representative prop of male power”. Despite being fixed to the wall, the stone coulisse in the semi-circular basin protrudes well into space, and the arc of the staggered placing of the figures traces a serpentine line extending into the courtyard. Strobl draws on this to unfold the narrative condensed into sculptural figures and to link the hunt with the love affair. At the same time, this line leads from a figure towering in the distance, composed mainly for a frontal view, to increasingly spatial, circular standing and seated figures, i.e. from a pictorial form accessible to the eye to figures that dynamically unfold and can be experienced as three-dimensional bodies.
There were two Hungarian-related depictions within the decorative painting of the Weberhaus, the former building of the Weavers’ Guild in Augsburg. In 1538, Jörg Breu Jr. added portraits of the Habsburg monarchs and King Louis II (Jagiello) of Hungary and the Czech Republic to the 15th-century decoration of the central room (Zunftstube) of the building. Although much of the fresco has been destroyed, a 19th-century watercolour reconstructs the original depiction. At the beginning of the 17th century, Johann Matthias Kager decorated the three facades of the building with frescoes relating to the history of the town and the weaver’s guild. The representative eastern façade shows the Battle of Lechfeld (955), which played an important role not only in the history of the town but also in the history of the empire. The battle between the Hungarian “adventurous” raiders and the united troops of the previously disunited German princes brought not only the defeat of the Hungarians, but also the gradual end of their plundering campaigns in Western Europe. Kager also captured an anachronistic legend that played an important role in the guild identity of the Augsburg weavers, according to which their ancestors had captured the coat of arms of a Hungarian nobleman in battle, which Otto I presented to them as a reward and made it the guild’s coat of arms. We know of many depictions of the Battle of Lechfeld from medieval miniatures onwards, but the story of the coat of arms first appears in Kager’s fresco. Although the Weberhaus was demolished in 1913, we can reconstruct its former painted decoration on the basis of 17–19th century descriptions, etchings, book illustrations and watercolours.
During World War II six thousand Hungarians enlisted for labour service were taken from Hungary to Bor in Serbia occupied by germany (1943–1944). The great majority called up for unarmed labour service were of Jewish origin; they were supervised by Hungarian soldiers and worked under the control of german military officials (Organisation Todt). They were put to slave labour in the mines and the construction of the mountain railroad around Bor. Several of the Jewish labourers were beginning or already acknowledged artists at the time of their conscription. no matter how adverse the circumstances were, some of them did not give up their creative activity during work in Bor. The three works mentioned in the paper were created in labour camps during the Holocaust, at high artistic level. Their singularity, however, is not primarily their attainment but the choice of their unusual genre. Their common feature is the genre of the (fairy) tale. “Ein Märchen von Bor” narrates the story of the Bor mine in 50 scenes and poems in german written under them. The characters of the tales are figures from the literature of tales, german occupiers and inmates of labour camps. The tale that takes place around the mining region of Bor alloys reality, fancy and the faith of the conscripts on labour duty in their liberation. The other tale based on Mother Holle also known from the grimm brothers’ collection is titled “Tale of a good and a bad little girl”. It consists of twelve colour pictures. It was made upon the commission of one inmate for the wedding anniversary of another one. The cock often appearing in tales has particularly great significance here: it is the herald of the Messiah, and in Hebrew tradition it is a symbol of betrothal and fertility. The other ancient symbols emerging in the tale get further meanings in this context. The third art work mentioned in the paper depicts a single day in Bor in six scenes and a few lines. The tale written in postcard format is at the same time a confession of love to the bride left at home. love thus plays an important role in all tales or in their genesis.The creators and in two cases the addressees of the works of art are known: graphic artists Ferenc Szabó and poet Tibor Sándori (Tales of Bor) and graphic artist Albert Csillag (“Tale of a bad and a good little girl” and “One day”). All the creators, as well Károly niederländer, who commissioned a tale for his wife, fell victim to the Holocaust in Bor, or after the evacuation of Bor in Hungary or germany. Their works created in Bor survived them miraculously thanks to their comrades liberated in and around Bor.
Giovanni Maria Parenti was a 15th-century humanist cleric who wrote a book on the life and miracles of Saint Geminianus, the patron saint of his native Modena. The book, decorated with colour engravings, was published in 1495, also in Modena. A lesser known detail of the author’s life is that in 1486 he was part of an embassy to Hungary and compiled a twelve-page travel diary of his journey from Venice to the Hungarian royal court. The original manuscript, preserved in the State Archives of Modena, is not in good condition. Much of the text is very difficult to read, but it is well worth the effort: the diary-like document is not simply a list of the places visited on the journey, but a colourful and eventful account of the experience, with scenes of humour, enthusiastic praise and sharp criticism. And the description of the Archbishop’s seat in Esztergom includes unique details that are rarely found in other sources: the large murals of the archiepiscopal castle, details of the portraits of kings, mainly known from Antonio Bonfini’s work, and the scene of the conquest of the Pannonian Basin by the Magyars. The study provides information on the origins of the document, analyses the content of the text, adds other sources to the story, and the appendix includes a Hungarian translation of Parenti’s travel diary alongside the original text.
The plans of the ecclesiastical complex drafted in the 1820s were based on certain 18th century antecedents. The death of Archbishop Ferenc Barkóczy (1761–1765) in 1765 interrupted the constructions started on plans by Franz Anton Hillebrandt (1719–1797). The retransfer of the archiepiscopal see from Nagyszombat to Esztergom was not possible for more than another half a century, until the archiepiscopacy of Sándor Rudnay (1819–1831) (Fig. 1).So as to reconstruct the evolution of the 19th century conceptions, all the extant and accessible plan material must be put to meticulous analysis – to continue the work of the scholarly predecessors interested in the building history of the basilica (Antal Leopold, Gyula Edvi Illés, Gyula Prokopp) and to complement their observations and findings. The collation and examination of the – not always signed and dated – plans kept in diverse collections (Vienna, Esztergom and Budapest) are also necessary to try and establish their chronological order. Luckily, the dated sheets and the earlier and still ongoing processing of the sources provide several clues that allow us to infer the time line and the changes in the architectural ideas. The paper makes an attempt to reconstruct the formation of architectural ideas on the basis of the most detailed study of plans drafted between 1820 and 1822.The 18th century spatial layout of the required buildings of the ecclesiastical government was kept unchanged: the cathedral is located on Castle Hill framed on the west overlooking the Danube, and on two sides by wings of the archiepiscopal palace. A monumental wide ramp leads to Castle Hill on the east lined on either side by the residences of the members of the cathedral chapter, enclosing the open place formed at the eastern, lower part of the ramp. The clergy’s seminaries are also situated east of Castle Hill. The 18th century idea of the disposition of the buildings – expressing their hierarchy as well – was accepted by the 19th century posterity, but the appearance of the individual buildings was modified according to the new style.Archbishop Rudnay gave the commission of planning to Ludwig von Remy (1776–1856), the office director of the imperial and royal architectural office (Hofbauamt) of Vienna in May 1920, endorsed by Emperor and King of Hungary Francis I on 27 July 1820. The series of Remy’s Esztergom plans preserved in the Albertina has been enlarged in the past fifty years or so (Figs 2–14), hence we have a far larger basis to examine his architectural ideas than Gyula Prokopp had in the early 1970s. /The (incomplete) series of Remy’s plan drawings for Esztergom is found in the Albertina, which has been extended since Prokopp’s time./ The architect inspired by the spirit of triumphal neoclassicism must have been attracted by the urban scale of the commission. He drafted several versions of the buildings under Castle Hill. There is no knowing whether a site plan of all the buildings had been drafted, as it is missing from the Albertina series, so we can only hypothetically attempt to reconstruct his idea on the basis of available details (Fig. 15).Pál Kühnel (1765–1824) had a draughtsman’s role, especially in the early phase of the completion of Remy’s plans. However, soon he also began negotiating with Archbishop Rudnay and started making separate plans. Of course, by that time he had a good overview of Remy’s architectural ideas and could perform his drawing on their basis. Rudnay did not want rivalry between the two architects and hoped for their cooperation on a common plan. The Viennese official refrained from competing with his employee, so he withdrew from the commission, without handing over his plans completed by the beginning of 1821. Although Rudnay could not get to know Remy’s plans, they could still influence further planning through the collaboration of Kühnel and constitute an important station toward the plan to be implemented.Thus, the commission of planning passed on to Kühnel, who completed the first set of plan drawings (Figs 16–24) by March 1821. Not all the – once probably existing – plans of the series are known today. He already sketched up several versions for the canons’ houses financed by the members of the chapter (Figs 23–24) in 1820. Among that-time plans of the cathedral, the perspectival view of the interior of the basilica is particularly attractive (Fig. 18).Apart from the site plan drawing of Kühnel’s first plan series (Fig. 16), he also made two site plan variants (Figs 25–26), which were more adjusted to the terrain features of Castle Hill than the conception detailed on the sheets of the cathedral and the primatial palace. On these plan versions the building complex on Castle Hill is arranged in a trapezoid form: the lateral wings of the archiepiscopal palace converge westward – with different solutions on the two sketches. The four wings of both seminary buildings arranged around a square court are nearly identical in the two plan versions, while the canons’ residences are different: in one they have L-shaped ground-plan, in the other the auxiliary buildings are laid out parallel with the residences, thus separating the garden from the court.The plans and written sources suggest that the client did not have mature ideas about the canons’ nursing section at that time. Kühnel designed several optional residence buildings for the canons in 1820 and 1821 with various ground-plans and one or two storeys (Fig. 27–30). His contract included the planning of 22 dwelling houses, which was later extended on the eastern end of the curving row of houses with two buildings, the library and the archives. It was also an important consideration to incorporate some of the foundation walls surviving from the constructions during Archbishop Ferenc Barkóczy.In spring 1821 Kühnel drafted another series of plans. In the second series the ensemble on Castle Hill became more spacious and airy: the lateral wings of the archie-piscopal palace are shortened and do not turn eastward; they are linked to the cathedral with curving colonnades. The ground-plan of the cathedral also became more rational. The renaissance Bakócz Chapel attached to the cathedral with a kind of corridor in earlier plans got better integrated in the mass of the cathedral. In this plan series the crypt was to have been in the western side of the ba-silica, under the sanctuary zone (Figs 34–35). The number of the canons’ houses in the straight rows increased from five to six, therefore the curving row of house closing the ensemble on the east received the buildings of the library and the archives at its ends. North of the northern straight line of canons’ houses a new building of large floor space appeared in the site plan (Fig. 31): most probably for storage, offices and stables needed by the monumental building project.The construction of the cathedral was launched on the basis of plans created in this phase of planning (Fig. 36) with the laying of the foundation stone on 23 April 1822 – but shortly afterwards the plans had to be modified. That, however, will be the subject of a further paper.
Combining Italianate and science historical interests, the two authors present for the first time in Hungarian trans- lation the descriptions of the astronomical instruments of King Wladislas II in the original contexts of letters. We have compared the descriptions with similar contempo- raneous instruments, using the results and databases of the research literature of astronomy history. Our work was helped by several factors: photocopies of reports by Modenese envoys got incorporated in the system of the electronic Archival Portal of the Hungarian National Ar- chives within the frames of the Vestigia research project, and Elena Ferrazzi published the letters of Daineri in her dissertation of 2021.
