Saturday, June 25, 2016

Monograph on the Hungarian Angevin Legendary published by CEU Press


The long-awaited English edition of the monograph on the Hungarian Angevin Legendary, written by Béla Zsolt Szakács, has finally been published by CEU Press in Budapest. 
The Hungarian Angevin Legendary is perhaps the most important illuminated manuscript connected to the Angevin rulers of Hungary. It is a painted legendary, which in its current fragmentary state presents 58 legends (including the life of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary) on lavishly illuminated pages. Each page contains four scenes from the lives of the saints, and the images are only accompanied by short captions. The largest part of what remained of the codex was bound together in the eighteenth century in a volume housed in the Vatican Library. Some of the missing pages, often incomplete, have found their way into collections from the United States to Russia - most of the pages being preserved at the Morgan Library.

As of today, altogether 142 leaves from the Legendary (some of them fragmentary) are known in six different collections of the world. Since the digitization of the codex Vat. lat. 8541 by the Vatican Library, images of every page are available online (I have collected all the pictures on Pinterest). It is possible that some other fragments will come to light, as the original number of folios is estimated at 176. 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.

Scene from the Legend of St. Ladislas
(Vatican Library)
The monograph provides a detailed analysis of the image cycles contained in the dispersed manuscript: it provides a reconstruction of the original manuscript, analyses the different narrative of saints and their arrangement, and explains the significance of certain narratives. The book analyses the system of selecting and arranging the legend within the book, and also deals with the structure of the individual narrative cycles. Another part focuses on image types recurring in the lives of several saints.

The book was originally published in 2006 in Hungarian. The English edition has been updated, among others with additional bibliographical references, and it also contains a much higher number of illustrations than the original version. The new volume was presented by Ernő Marosi at CEU on June 23, 2016. The book is available at the publisher as well as at any good bookseller. 

Scenes from the Life of St. Alexis. The State Hermitage Museum

Scenes from the Life of St. Francis. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Béla Zsolt Szakács (PhD 1998) is head of the Department of Art History at Pázmány Péter Catholic University and associate professor of the Department of Medieval Studies at CEU, also contributing to the Cultural Heritage Program. He has been active in a CEU research project focusing on the visual resources of medieval East Central Europe in the framework of which he was extensively dealing with the Hungarian Angevin Legendary. His major research fields are Christian iconography, medieval architecture in Central Europe and the history of monument protection.

Bibliographical data: Béla Zsolt Szakács: The Visual World of the Hungarian Angevin Legendary (Central European Cultural Heritage Series, Volume I.). Budapest: CEU Press, 2016 (350 pages, 142 color illustrations, ISBN 978-963-7326-25-7)


Every surviving part of the manuscript is available online, please use the links below:

Vatican Library, Vat. Lat. 8541
New York, The Morgan Library, M.360.1-26
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum
Paris, Musée du Louvre (more information on this leaf here)

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Exhibitions of the St. Martin Memorial Year in Hungary

St. Martin and Pannonia - Poster 
A historical and archaeological exhibition titled St. Martin and Pannonia opened at two venues, in Pannonhalma and Szombathely. The exhibition is the most important scholarly element of the Saint Martin Memorial Year, held in commemoration of the 1700th anniversary of the saint's birth. The exhibition focuses on five centuries in the life of Pannonia - from the time of the Roman Empire to just before the Hungarian conquest, and provides and insight into the spread of Christianity in the region. 

Saint Martin was born in 316 in the Roman province of Pannonia near the city of Savaria, what is now Szombathely. The son of a wealthy military officer, he was required to join the cavalry when he turned fifteen. He became baptized in 339. His good deeds and his compassion and empathy for the poor became legendary and by popular demand he was appointed to bishop of Tours in 371. He was always regarded as one of the most important saints in Hungary, and now the anniversary of his birth provides a chance to have a look at the era when he lived, and also the centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire. 

This twin exhibition of international significance gathers hundreds of objects, largely stemming from Pannonia (nowadays western Hungary), coming from a number of Hungarian and foreign collections. The exhibition opened on June 3rd, and will remain on view until September at both the Iseum Savariense Museum in Szombathely and the Museum of Pannonhalma Archabbey. At Szombathely, visitors can trace the history of Pannonia and Savaria back to the Roman roots of the time when Saint Martin lived, whereas in Pannonhalma the age of Saint Martin, the Christian monk and bishop is in focus, as well as the subsequent centuries.

Fondo d'oro, 4th century (Hungarian National Museum)
The exhibition features a number of unique objects: the earliest piece is beautifully executed bronze statue of Fortuna from the 1st century. A large blue glass vase from the 4th century represents the sophistication of Roman culture in Pannonia (pieces of the Seuso Treasure could represents this as well - but none of those were available for loan). 

Blue jug, glass, 4th century (Kaposvár, Rippl Rónai Museum) 

The exhibition also presents a great selection of objects from the Migration Period: finds from a hun grave of Pannonhalma from the 5th century, or a unique Early Byzantine bronze jug with hunting scenes, found in an Avar period cemetery at Budakalász (for a 3D view, click here). Objects with Christian symbols (especially the cross) are featured from several early medieval treasure finds, such as the golden Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). 

Jewelry of a Germanic woman, 5th century (Hungarian National Museum)
Bronze jug with hunting scenes, c. 500 (Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum) 

Dish 9 of the Nagyszentmiklós Treasure, 7th century (Wien, KHM)
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated scholarly catalogue, and English-language edition of which is in preparation.

Further information (and advance tickets): www.szentmarton-pannonia.hu and on the website of the Via Sancti Martini European Cultural Route.