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Arts and Humanities
Adalékok Marczibányi István (1752–1810) műgyűjteményének történetéhez
Addenda to the history of István Marczibányi’s art collection
The art collection of István Marczibányi (1752–1810), remembered as the benefactor of the Hungarian nation, who devoted a great part of his fortune to religious, educational, scientific and social goals, is generally known as a collection of ‘national Antiquities’ of Hungary. This opinion was already widespread in Hungarian publicity at the beginning of the 19th century, when Marczibányi pledged that he would enrich the collection of the prospective Hungarian national Museum with his artworks. But the description of his collection in Pál Wallaszky’s book Conspectus reipublicae litterariae in Hungaria published in 1808 testifies to the diversity and international character of the collection. In the Marczibányi “treasury”, divided into fourteen units, in addition to a rich cabinet for coins and medals there were mosaics, sculptures, drinking vessels, filigree-adorned goldsmiths’ works, weapons, Chinese art objects, gemstones and objects carved from them (buttons, cameos, caskets and vases), diverse marble monuments and copper engravings. Picking, for example, the set of sculptures, we find ancient Egyptian, Greek and Ro man pieces as well as mediaeval and modern masterpieces arranged by materials.
After the collector’s death, his younger brother Imre Marczibányi (1755–1826) and his nephews Márton (1784–1834), János (1786–1830), and Antal (1793–1872) jointly inherited the collection housed in a palace in dísz tér (Parade Square) in Buda. In 1811, acting on the promise of the deceased, the family donated a selection of artworks to the national Museum: 276 cut gems, 9 Roman and Byzantine imperial gold coins, 35 silver coins and more than fifty antiquities and rarities including 17th and 18th-century goldsmiths’ works, Chinese soap-stone statuettes, ivory carvings, weapons and a South Italian red-figure vase, too. However, this donation did not remain intact as one entity. With the emergence of various specialized museums in the last third of the 19th century, a lot of artworks had been transferred to the new institutions, where the original provenance fell mostly into oblivion.
In the research more than a third of the artworks now in the Hungarian national Museum, the Museum of Applied Arts and the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest could be identified, relying on the first printed catalogue of the Hungarian national Museum (1825) titled Cimeliotheca Musei Nationalis Hungarici, and the handwritten acquisition registers. The entries have revealed that fictitious provenances were attached to several items, since the alleged or real association with prominent historical figures played an important role in the acquisition strategies of private collectors and museums alike at the time. For example, an ivory carving interpreted in the Cimeliotheca as the reliquary of St Margaret of Hungary could be identified with an object in the Metalwork Collection of the Museum of Applied Arts (inv. no. 18843), whose stylistic analogies and parallels invalidate the legendary origin: the bone plates subsequently assembled as a front of a casket were presumably made in a Venetian workshop at the end of the 14th century.
There are merely sporadic data about the network of István Marczibányi’s connections as a collector, and about the history of his former collection remaining in the possession of his heirs. It is known that collector Miklós Jankovich (1772–1846) purchased painted and carved marble portraits around 1816 from the Marczi bányi collection, together with goldsmiths’ works including a coconut cup newly identified in the Metalwork Collection of the Museum of Applied Arts (inv. no. 19041). The group of exquisite Italian Cinquecento bronze statuettes published by art historian Géza Entz (1913–1993), was last owned as a whole by Antal Marczibányi (nephew of István) who died in 1872. These collection of small bronzes could have also been collected by István Marczibányi, then it got scattered through inheritance, and certain pieces of it landed in north American and European museums as of the second third of the 20th century. Although according to Entz’s hypothesis the small bronzes were purchased by István’s brother Imre through the mediation of sculptor and art collector István Ferenczy (1792–1956) studying in Rome, there is no written data to verify it. By contrast, it is known that the posthumous estate of István Marczibányi included a large but not detailed collection of classical Roman statues in 1811, which the heirs did not donate to the national Museum. It may be presumed that some of the renaissance small bronzes of mythological themes following classical prototypes were believed to be classical antiquities at the beginning of the 19th century. Further research will hopefully reveal more information about the circumstances of their acquisition.
Az esztergomi főszékesegyház és egyházkormányzati központ építészeti koncepciójának kialakulása és változásai •
I. rész: Az esztergomi Várhegy a 18. század második felében
Evolution of and changes in the architectural conception of a cathedral and church administration centre in esztergom. Part I: Esztergom’s castle hill in the second half of the 18th century
With the advance of the Ottoman Empire the Archiepiscopate of Esztergom was forced to leave its seat and move to Nagyszombat. The buildings of mediaeval origin on Castle Hill, first housing royalties and later the archbishop, were appropriated by the military forces and suffered considerable damage from sieges and the Ottoman domination. The rule of the Turks ceased in Esztergom in 1683, but the archbishopric did not return before 1820. Nonetheless, the archbishops of the 18th century were also preoccupied with the fate and future of the buildings on Castle Hill.
Archbishop Ferenc Barkóczy (1761–1765, fig. 4) commissioned the Vienna-based architect of French origin, Isidore Ganneval (1730–1786) to plan a centre of ecclesiastical management on Castle Hill. Unfortunately, it is hard to glean from the fragmentary archival sources what exactly Ganneval was asked to design. His extant survey drawings are only about the renaissance Bakócz chapel which survived the vicissitudes of the centuries relatively intact. Ganneval’s fairly modest fee and his stay of a few months only permit the assumption that he was contracted only to draw up a sketchy proposal. The wooden model (fig. 5) only known from a photograph and possibly perished by now, which can hardly be fitted among the subsequent plan variants, might as well reflect the ideas inspired by his planning work in Esztergom. The conception documented by the wooden mock-up does not take into account the existing, mostly ramshackle buildings and fortifications. The “Navis Ecclesiae” idea represented by the model shows the cathedral flanked by wings of the archiepiscopal palace, the buildings of the theological college are situated lower, and the main road to Visegrád is lined by the canons’ houses. The sanctuary of the cathedral faces west breaking with the tradition of the eastern apse. The groundplan is a fusion of centralized and longitudinal plans, its basic element is the Bakócz Chapel (fig. 6) the mass of which is reiterated and enlarged in it.
This proposal ignored the possibility of preserving the mostly mediaeval buildings and fortifications on Castle Hill. In December 1761, however, Archbishop Barkóczy was compelled to sign the obligation by the War Council to undertake the maintenance of the Castle Hill fortifications and in case of enemy attacks to accommodate imperial troops there. It was only through the intervention of the Queen, Maria Theresa, that Barkóczy could be exempted from this obligation in 1763.
The next plan of a church administration centre was elaborated by Franz Anton Hillebrandt (1719–1797) whose first plan series was made during the validity of the military obligation from December 1761 to March 1763. It is quite possible that the style of the architect of the Hungarian royal chamber was closer to the taste of the baroque art patron Barkóczy than that of Canneval twenty years his junior, representing the progressivity of revolutionary architecture. The latter was also commissioned by Anton Christoph Migazzi to design the cathedral of Vác, whose style did not attract followers in Hungary.
Apart from the principal plan known in the copy by Anton Hartmann (fig. 7) only four pieces of the first plan series survive, including the first floor plan of the seminary building (fig. 8). This baroque conception keeps the fortified walls and bastions around Castle Hill but demolishes the military buildings on the plateau (barracks, hospital, stalls, etc.). It is like an architectural counter-proposal to Ganneval’s wooden model, taking into greater consideration the relief features than the perfunctory mock-up. Hillebrandt delivered these plans to Archbishop Barkóczy on 10 March 1763 and forwarded the queen’s message at the same time: the financial obligation to maintain the military defences of Castle Hill had been abrogated. It immediately invalidated the plans just presented, and obstacles from the path of planning were removed. That was probably the stimulus behind the free-handed amateur linear drawing of a groundplan made perhaps by the archbishop or his representative for the architect in 1763 (fig. 9) in which the functions of the buildings are defined. In a sense it returns to Ganneval’s model which handled Castle Hill without any restrictions.
Only few – a mere six sheets – of Hillebrandt’s plans are known from after the sketch. (A part of the plans were probably taken by architect István Möller to Budapest in the first decades of the 20th century and possibly perished during the siege of the capital in 1945 or during the reconstruction.) Anyway, it must have been on the basis of this second series of plans that the demolition of mediaeval remains, soil levelling and the laying of foundations began in 1763. In 1764, the collapse of an Ottoman minaret built using a mediaeval stair-tower caused the crushing of Porta Speciosa, the main portal of the mediaeval St Adalbert cathedral. Mainly preparatory construction went on until the death of Archbishop Barkóczy in 1765. That interrupted the building of a baroque church administration centre for good.
Building commissioner János Máthes (1785–1848) summed up in his work published in 1827 how far the construction had arrived and what was built later. Maria Theresa requested Hillebrandt to plan a church dedicated to King Saint Stephen for the garrison reinstated on Castle Hill, which was constructed in 1767–1770. It was – on a smaller scale – on the site of the planned baroque cathedral, certainly not using its foundation walls. About the situation a layout drawing (fig. 12), groundplan and design plan (fig. 13) are included in Máthes’s book. In addition, a now latent or extinct, mock-up (fig. 14) made by Máthes also reflects the situation on Castle Hill in the last quarter of the 18th century. In the lower part of the model made in the early 1820s groundplans of the buildings on Castle Hill could be seen (fig. 16). One of the specialties of the church was the copy of the Hungarian royal crown placed on the spire as the crowning ornament. On the façade on top of the stairs adjacent to the broad ramp leading to the basilica of today the statues of Saints Stephen and Ladislaus carved by the Pest sculptor József Hebenstreit were erected. Surviving items include side altar pictures painted by Anton Karl Rosier of Pozsony which are today in the Esztergom church of the Sisters of Mercy of Szatmár. The later rebuilt garrison church was pulled down in 1821 to make room for today’s cathedral. One of the first moves of the new construction was the transfer of the Bakócz Chapel to its present place. The cathedral, the construction of which started on plans by Pál Kühnel (1765–1824) and János Packh (1796–1839) fitted into a conception of a church government centre the model for which might have been provided by Ganneval’s plan of nearly sixty years before.
Barabás Miklós első Széchenyi István-képmása 1836-ból
Miklós Barabás’s first portrait of István Széchenyi from 1836
In the study I explore the relationship between the popular reformist politician of the first half of the 19th century István Széchenyi (1791–1860) and the painter Miklós Barabás (1810–1898). Miklós Barabás of Márkusfalva returned to Pest from a study tour of Italy in late 1835. He had an immense amount of sketches from his travels, and hardly any clients to sell to, so he tried to make acquaintances through the prominent figures of literature. His first commission was to paint the portrait of the poet Mihály Vörösmarty. During this commission he got acquainted with Antal Tasner, Count István Széchenyi’s secretary, who directed the count’s attention to the young painter. In this period several important institutions were associated with Széchenyi: he made a donation for the establishment of the Scholarly Society (the later Academy of Sciences), he took part in founding the National Casino in Pest, and had an active role in the work of the First Danubian Steam Shipping Company. From the end of the 1820s he wrote and published four books: Lovakrul [On Horses], Hitel [Credit], Világ [World/ Light], Stádium [State/stage of development]. His portrait was popular and in high demand. In 1835 eight different drawings and paintings were made of the politician. The aldermen of four counties – Hont, Bihar, Nógrád and Sopron – wished to acquire a portrait of him each. In response to the request by Bihar county, Széchenyi recommended Miklós Barabás to paint the portrait and guaranteed that the painting would be a success.
Széchenyi and Barabás met in person in February 1836 when the portrait in the focus of research was made with the count sitting for it. This half-length portrait of the count in Hungarian gala costume was extended to full length portraits several times and sold to different clients.At the present stage of research the painting ordered by Hont county (in the Mining Museum, Selmecbánya) is the only original portrait in addition to the half-figure prototype, and the work for Sopron county is known in reproduction. The two depictions are iconographically connected by the black Hungarian gala costume and the motifs alluding to Széchenyi’s political activity (books on the table, steamboat in the background). After Széchenyi’s death in 1860 Pest county also commissioned Barabás to paint a full-length portrait of him. In the background of the painting of 1867 the construction of Chain-bridge is shown. The posture of the figure is, however, not so excellently set as in the earlier pictures. Barabás kept the first-painted half-length portrait with him to the end of his life. His heirs later sold it to Dénes Széchenyi, the grandson of István Széchenyi’s brother Lajos and it survived the vicissitudes of the 20th century in family ownership.
A gróf, a festő és a bécsi ágens: Széchényi Antal képmása Michael Christoph Emanuel Hagelganstól (1762)
The count, the painter and the viennese agent: Portrait of Antal Széchényi by Michael Christoph Emanuel Hagelgans (1762)
The half-length portrait of cavalry general Count Antal Széchényi (1714–1767) is kept in the Rómer Flóris Museum of Győr. During its restoration the painter’s signature came to light: Hagelgans pinxit / Wien 1762, and in the Széchényi family archives the correspondence about the picture can be found. Between the painter and the client, the count’s agent in Vienna, Johann Edler von Hermann was the liaison, who claimed that Hagelgans regarded the painting so good that he kept it for himself and made a replica for Antal Széchényi. In the early 20th century the first picture was kept at the Ludovika military academy in Budapest, and the copy ended up in the museum from the family. The Darmstadt painter signed a representative portrait in the Historical Picture Gallery of the Hungarian National Museum in 1758. Later the portrait – including the face – was overpainted and the coat of arms of chief justice Baron Ferenc Koller as well as the middle cross of the Order of St Stephen Koller received in 1765 were added.
Agent Hermann also tried to find a fresco painter for Antal Széchényi and consulted Gregorio Guglielmi, who was working on Schönbrunn at that time. He failed to get advice, but he did send a master to Nagycenk, who may have been Johann Ignaz Cimbal. Although no baroque fresco was painted in the Széchenyi mansion, but on the basis of the style of the altar picture of the chapel (Christ on the Cross) and the praedella showing the Virgin Mary suggests that they might hypothetically be attributed to the fertile altarpiece and fresco painter who had settled from Wagstadt (Bílovec) to Vienna.
Several Vienna-based agents of Hungarian aristocrats pursued artistic activity and art brokering. Stefan Fabsich and Antal Pruszkay worked for the bishop of Eger Károly Eszterházy, the mentioned Knight Hermann and a certain Heinrich Schwarzenberger and later his widow acquired art works for István Esterházy of Zólyom (Zvolen), who also employed the court agent Johann Stifftel. Between 1758 and 1762 Stifftel was the secretary of the princes Esterházy in Kismarton (Eisenstadt): he arranged for the first contract with the composer Joseph Haydn.
Kállai Ernő német nyelven megjelent írásainak könyvészeti jegyzéke (1938-1944) •
Közreadja Bardoly István
List of ernő kállai’s writings in german. compiled by árpád tímár, edited by István Bardoly
A collection of Ernő Kállai’s writings was published forty years ago, in 1981, by Corvina publisher. The pieces were selected, prefaced and the bibliography compiled by Éva Forgács. (Kállai Ernő: Művészet veszélyes csillagzat alatt. Válogatott cikkek, tanulmányok [art under a perilous constellation. Selected articles, studies]. Ed. and pref. Éva Forgács. Budapest 1981). Kállai’s last – published – writing appeared about lászló Mednynászky in the paper Politika on 9 July 1949. He was excommunicated from the profession, silenced, he lived in misery. He made ends meet by translating, selling items of his library, or pawning. “Old chum, i learnt yesterday that the ‘Breton Calvaries’ was only worth 35 forints. That’s the price then i want for them. Segers, Hausenstein – Klee are absolute rarities or amateur values, so i can wholeheartedly recommend them to your Excellency’s attention. Can we strike a bargain?” “By the way, i must return the typewriter to doctor Kővári. That means, until i can redeem mine, i must obtrude myself on you. and type on the small remington. – i’m sorry,” he wrote to his friend Miklós Szentkuthy in 1949. (Szentkuthy Miklós válogatott levelezése [Selected correspondence of M.Sz.] Ed. Hernád imre. Budapest 2008, 150–151.) Sporadically one or another Kállai writing appeared in anthologies before 1981 (Kortársak szemével. Írások a Magyar művészetről [Through the eyes of contemporaries. Writings about Hungarian art]. Ed. and pref. Perneczky Géza. Budapest 1967; Kritikák és képek. Válogatás a Magyar képzőművészet dokumentumaiból 1945–1975 [reviews and pictures. Selection from the documents of Hungarian arts 1945–1975] Compiled: art Historical research Group, HaS. Budapest 1976.). His books – cherished treasures of their owners – passed from hand to hand among the interested.
Already Éva Forgács stressed that “the precondition for restoring him to his deserved place in the history of Hungarian art which he lost thirty years ago is, apart from the collection and publication of his works, a change in attitude: not least, the still viable convention must be superseded which values and ranks a mediocre aesthete or art philosopher higher, takes him more seriously than an outstanding critic, saying that after all, he is only a critic.” (Forgács Éva: Bevezető [introduction]. in Kállai op.cit. 9). This work was accomplished by árpád Tímár, who edited the works of Ernő Kállai in eight volumes.
He knew best the history of art criticism in Hungary whose foundations he laid with several decades of research into the “cemetery of dailies”, publishing writings by imre Henszlmann, lajos Fülep, György lukács, leó Popper, artúr Elek. The Kállai collection fits in this series. He termed the “possibly complete” bibliography in the volume edited by Éva Forgács a “till now unavoidable” starting point (Kállai Ernő: Összegyűjtött írások = Ernst Kállai: Gesammelte Werke i. articles, studies in Hungarian 1912–1925. Ed., after-word: Tímár árpád. Budapest 1999, 236), but during his researches he corrected and extended her list. He worked alone elaborating the Hungarian articles, and with Csilla Markója and Monika Wucher in libraries of Munich, Berlin, Pozsony and Vienna to scan the majority of German-language papers inaccessible then (and today) in Hungary, exploring several so-far unknown writings. The collected material appeared in eight elegant tomes between 1999 and 2010 (Kállai Ernő: Összegyűjtött írások = Ernst Kállai: Gesammelte Werke. i–Vi, Viii, X. Budapest 1999–2012), except volumes 7 and 9, which ought to have contained the articles published in german in 1938–1944 (in Forum, Pester Lloyd). árpád Tímár prepared the bibliography of this material – which differs in volume and the accuracy of the items from the list presented in 1981 – but he had no drive or energy to type the text of hundreds of pages; he wished to work on more important engagements. Was he right to think others could also finish this project? Well, as long as it remains a project for the future, we offer some help for those interested with the bibliography of articles written in German between 1938 and 1944
„Megbízottam szoborral hétfőn este indul…” Az egervári Straub-szobrok múzeumba kerülésének és másoltatásának története dokumentumok tükrében
“My agent starts with the statue late on monday…”The museum acquisition and replication of the straub statues of egervár as revealed by the documents
The rococo wooden statues of St Sebastian and St Roch were purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts in 1916. Earlier they had adorned the high altar of the church of St Catherine of Alexandria in Egervár (Zala county) flanking the tabernacle. Their first researcher, Mária Aggházy attributed them to the Graz sculptor Philipp Jakob Straub (Wiesensteig 1706–Graz 1774). The Egervár church of mediaeval origin belonged after the Ottoman era to the advowson of the Széchényi family who had trade and art relations with Styria, too; they had the church rebuilt and furnished in baroque style in the mid-18th century.
As part of the contract of sale, the museum undertook and financed the making of exact copies of the statues to replace the original ones on the high altar, where they still are. It can be reconstructed from the correspondence of 1912–’22 preserved in and Museum of Fine Arts Archives and the Archives of the Diocesan Archives in Szombathely that probably little before 1912 the statues were transferred to the Szombathely episcopacy for conservation. Bishop János Mikes had them restored and maybe also exhibited. Their sale became necessary for the parish to be able to renovate the deteriorating Egervár church. The deal was concluded with an ordinary procedure, but World War I and the inflation it entailed greatly protracted the making of the copies and boosted the costs. Eventually, the replicas were completed in two phases by teachers of the National Royal Hungarian School of Applied Arts, sculptor Sándor Matéka (St Sebastian) and decorator and furniture designer Béla Kajdy (St Roch).
A pomázi szerb templom berendezésének kialakulása a 18. század végén
Evolution of the furnishing of the serbian church in pomáz by the late 18th century
Commission to build an Orthodox church in Pomáz was given around 1720 by the Serbian population demonstrably present in the settlement from the 1660s. The church dedicated to the megalomartyr Saint George was consecrated by the bishop of Buda Mihailo Milošević (1716–1728) in 1722, exactly 300 years ago. The orthodox church of Pomáz is one of the earliest surviving monuments of the Serbian Church after the great Serbian immigration (Seoba). Its history and artistic values have been dealt with by Pál Voit, Sztoján D. Vujicsics, Iván Jaksity sr., Dinko Davidov and Márta Nagy earlier. The church books of birth marriage and death survive as of 1752, the documents of the parish as of 1783. The scrutiny of the accounts books for the period from 1783 and 1800 has revealed a lot of new data about the construction of the church, its furnishing and even of the masters involved. The presentation of the new information is the main aim of the paper.
The explored archival data reveal that the church built around 1720 was already in need of reconstruction by the 1770s. In the western end of the nave a gallery was erected in 1783 and by 1794 the old tower was replaced by a new taller one. The still extant furniture is documented from the 1780s. in 1789 two painters were contracted to decorate the existing canons’ seats and the bishop’s throne. The identity of the master named Georgije in a source is unsettled. The other can be identified as painter Arsenije Teodorović (1767–1826) who was in the first year of his studies at Vienna’s Academy. He was to become one of the most outstanding figures of Serbian painting in the age whose many prestigious commissions in the Serbian Orthodox diocese of Buda included the painted decoration of the furnishing of St Nicholas’s church in Baja at the beginning of his career (1793–1794), and already as a mature painter he decorated the iconostasis, cantors’ benches and the throne of the Theotokos in the orthodox cathedral of Buda (Tabán) (1818–1820). From his works in Pomáz only the pictorial representation on the bishop’s seat survives partly overpainted. It shows Saint John Chrysostom in a fairly unusual composition.
The wooden framework of the classicizing late baroque iconostasis (1793–1794) was made by wood carver Avram Manojlović of zombor; his most exquisite work in Hungary is the iconostasis in Baja (1788–1790). The iconostasis of Pomáz – a far more modest work than the one in Baja – was a commission for the Baja-born Pavel Ðurković (1772–1830?) as the recently explored documents verify. So far, the first iconostasis by Ðurković – who was to become the decisive artist of the Serbs in the first quarter of the 19th century – was believed to be the one in Dunaföldvár dated to 1799–1801, but the new source confirms that his first known ecclesiastic commission was the pomáz iconostasis. regrettably, owing to layers of overpainting only certain segments have preserved Ðurković’s brushstrokes.
A few separate icons in the Pomáz church verify the active presence of another two 18th century Serbian painters in Pomáz. The icon of Christ Enthroned with Saint John the Baptist is attributable to Hristofor Žefarović’s workshop. It probably belonged to the earlier iconostasis painted a little before 1740. Today there is only a single icon in the Pomáz church that preserves the memory of the sojourn in the village in 1770–1775 of Teodor Simeonov gruntović from Moscopolis, who with his workshop was very active in the territory of the Hungarian kingdom. His best-known works are the rich ensembles of icons in the churches of ráckeve and Székesfehérvár.
Abstract
In this paper, I present a novel corpus investigation of quantified and negated objects in the Middle English and Early Modern English period, which is embedded within the wider language change scenario from linear OV to linear VO in the history of English. It will be shown that evidence for preverbal positioning of such objects is mostly limited to translated texts in Middle English in the PPCME2 corpus, and that by late Middle English, most of the hits consist of negated elements, as shown in the PCEEC corpus, which consists of native texts. The different constraints governing spell out of positive objects in Old English and Middle English are discussed and compared to the licensing of negated and quantified objects. The data provided in this paper constitute further evidence for Ingham's (2000, 2002, 2007) analysis of preposed negated objects in late ME and their correlation with the Negative Cycle, and complement previous investigations on negated and quantified objects in Middle English and Early Modern English.
Among the Tangut Buddhist texts discovered from Khara-Khoto, there emerges a text entitled Gu tśja ɣiej tsji̱r tśhji kjịj, which means ‘Analysis of the Essence of Madhyamaka.’ Intriguingly, a Tibetan treatise composed by Rgya dmar ba Byang chub grags (fl. 12th century) bears the same title. A comparison between the texts in both languages shows that about 50% of their contents are the same. Although the Tangut text cannot be regarded as a translation of the Tibetan text we see today, the complex relationship between both texts and the history of the transmission of the Tibetan treatise is worth investigating.
Abstract
Over many decades, the library of Radvány castle has developed into a valuable and organized collection. The founders and owners of the library were members of the Radvánszky family from Radvány right until the time when it finally became state property. The collection has been described on several occasions, and the state of the library has been explored several times in the literature; however, to date, its holdings have not been described and published in detail. However, the specialist would be in an easy position, since catalogs have survived and, in addition, a significant part of the collection still exists, so there is a good chance that the library's stock can be reconstructed. The real and the supposed processes of building the collection may be traced back quite clearly over a period of more than a century and a half.
This article examines the figure of the passive hero first in the Korean literature of origins, and then in classical Korean literature of the Koryŏ and Chosŏn periods. After a general introductory section, in which the worldwide literary archetype of the hero and its evolution over time are examined, the author, specifically examining Korean literature, analyzes in part one the passive heroes of four short historical/mythological stories variously set in an era between the second and eighth centuries, and then part two of the article analyzes three passive hero figures as protagonists of one 14th-century tale and two 18th-century classic novels. The author thus shows how the narrative of the passive hero has undergone a significant transformation in Korea, passing from a mythical/spiritual state (which often does not even admit the figure of an antagonist) to a decidedly secular, materialist and politicized condition where the protagonists find themselves facing cultural superstructures which, in addition to generating antagonists, push passive heroes towards true forms of defensive fundamentalism.
The concept of the ‘Japanization of Confucianism’ took shape during the Meiji 明治 period (1868–1912 C.E.), reached its highest point of development in Tokugawa Japan (1603–1868), and is epitomized by the rise of the Kyoto faction (Kyō-gakuha 京學派) of Zhu Xi studies (Shushi-gaku 朱子學). However, due to the underestimation of Japanese Zhu Xi studies by scholars like Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 from the early twentieth century onward, the Kyoto faction ipso facto has been largely eclipsed in the history of the study of Japanese Confucianism. In light of this, the present article investigates the representative scholars in the Kyoto faction to uncover the dynamic process of Confucianism’s penetration into Japanese society. A multiple-dimension study is conducted to dissect varied approaches to promoting the Japanization of Confucianism, including the vernacularization and sanctification of Confucianism in Japan. This article seeks to redefine the role of the Kyoto faction in the transmission of Confucianism across East Asia.
Abstract
This paper offers a preliminary linguistic analysis of votive texts with particular reference to their use of and variation in Latin. The aim of the linguistic analysis is to identify variation in the context of votive texts. In those votive inscriptions which contained a request, precise wording was considered crucial for the request to reach the gods. Therefore, schematic, formulaic wording is common. The epigraphic corpus under study shows various Vulgar Latin traits. The incorporation of ‘non-Roman’ or pre-Roman cults into Latin caused the greatest problems, with most variations occurring in the names of such gods. Since the names of these gods are not included in literary sources, our primary sources for these cults are inscriptions and they show characteristics of Vulgar Latin.
Abstract
This paper offers an updated and current picture of the history of research carried out by scholars affiliated with Austrian universities and institutions on late antique caskets found in the territories of the provinces of Noricum and Pannonia. The central figure in this research was Helmut Buschhausen who, notably in his monograph on the subject, collected a large number of casket mounts found particularly in the Pannonian provinces. Starting with Buschhausen's research, this paper focuses on the evolution of studies carried out in Austria on late Roman caskets to define the status quaestionis, also in consideration of the research carried out in this area by Hungarian scholars. The description of an interesting case study concerning the casket mounts found at the Austrian site of Traismauer (Augustianis) allows us to take stock of current studies of late antique caskets.
Abstract
The Kingdom of Hungary and the Grand Duchy of Transylvania were integrated into the Holy Roman Empire during the 18th century and accordingly, this shaped its institutional system. There were many obstacles to the creation of the “Empire-conform” library system. After 150 years of Ottoman rule, the country had to be rebuilt physically. It also had to build new Church and state centers, while the wars against the Turks continued, until the end of the 18th century. Public life was burdened by the anti-Protestantism of the Habsburg emperors, since, at the end of the 17th century, two-thirds of the country's population were Protestants. By the end of the 18th century this proportion had dropped to one-third. (At the same time, the Protestant institutional system was also dismantled.) In other words, the library system was built twice in a century and a half and demolished again to create a new system. In summary, however, it can be concluded that a library system conforming to that of the Habsburg Empire was established in the Kingdom of Hungary and Transylvania during the century following the end of the Ottoman rule.
Abstract
In this paper, the principle of semantic redundancy is examined as evidenced in the corpus of the Moesia Superior inscriptions (Inscriptions de la Mésie supérieure – IMS). The objective is to identify pleonastic phrases within the epigraphic material and to distinguish instances of unmotivated redundancy. The starting point is the observation made by Hofmann, Löfstedt, Herman, and others that this type of redundancy, contrary to the pragmatically motivated or “rhetoric” one, could reflect the ongoing semantic change in Vulgar Latin. Given the scarcity of semantic redundancy findings in the IMS corpus, this paper also serves as an introduction to this linguistically important topic.
Abstract
In late antiquity, there has been a public opinion that African Latin is specific and different from the Latin spoken in other regions of the Roman Empire. Several grammarians also mention – in comparison with the so-called classical Latin – incorrect (linguistic) phenomena, which are associated with the Latin speakers of the African provinces. In my paper, I will examine one of these (perceived?) Africanisms, the wrong use of the l sound/letter (labdacism) through a selection of texts available in the grammatical tradition, and finally, with the inclusion of African epigraphical material, I will discuss the phenomenon of wrong gemination and degemination in African provinces, which might closely be related to the phenomenon called labdacism by grammarians.
Abstract
In 2019 a tiny gold tablet, once folded several times, turned up in a private collection in Hungary. Due to its physical appearance and the layout of the text, the tablet originally had been identified as a ‘foil with a Greek magical inscription’ in an auction catalogue. At first glance, however, it becomes obvious that the text was written with Latin letters. Although parts of the text recall Greek and Latin Christian apologists' works, the pagan apotropaic language of the amulet is evident throughout. The text itself proposes a major impact of Greek. This paper offers a preliminary report on establishing the text and gives approaches for interpreting the gold lamella.
Abstract
This paper aims to discuss the linguistic data provided by over 400 ostraca from the praesidium of Didymoi in the Eastern Desert, with a focus on Latin texts and phenomena of interference with Greek. After providing an overview of the socio-historical context of Eastern Egypt, this research conducts a general quantitative analysis of the linguistic features of the Latin ostraca and compares them to other corpora which are similar in terms of chronology and geographic provenance. Our analysis reveals peculiarities of the Latin ostraca from Didymoi, which are further investigated through a qualitative analysis to identify potential levels of variation.
The results of the analysis aim to demonstrate two main points. Firstly, it is not to be ruled out that the Latin language had a greater presence in Roman Egypt than commonly believed, extending beyond the coram imperio public sphere. Secondly, the Latin language emerging from these ostraca is to be considered as a bundle of varieties reflecting in most cases interlanguage stages among learners who have Substandard Latin, variously tending toward Neo-Standard, as their target language.
Abstract
The interjection was recognised as a part of speech by the Latin grammarians, replacing the lack of the article class in the Greek system and maintaining the eight parts of speech. However, it is noteworthy that the definition of interjection among the different scholars and grammarians is not stable and wavers between the need to identify its role as a part of speech – whether it was an adverb or not – and its pragmatic function, identifying to what extent it was connected to emotions. The scholarly discussion over the interjection entangled and disentangled itself during the centuries, and its theoretical status has been verified in the present paper, which shows how the classical and non-classical evidence reconnects this part of speech to its most rhetorical function. This paper delves into this debate, focusing on the interjection heu and providing a history of the interjection, covering the classical period and the Middle Ages, according to the linguistic perspective and highlighting how Latin grammarians considered it in their linguistic framework.
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to study the continuity of musical thinking professionalization on examples of piano works by Transcarpathian composers, which are very significant for the formation of the Transcarpathian compositional tradition as a historical phenomenon of mastery development by Transcarpathian composers (Zsigmond Lengyel, Dezső Zádor, István Márton, Emil Kobulei, Mykola Popenko, Volodymir Volontyr, Anatoly Zatin, Viktor Telychko) regarding their compliance with the academic norms of musical thinking and with historically composed stylistic invariants. The approach to the research phenomenon is monadological, which means the intention to diagnose a mentally peculiar discourse of the stylistic design, combining the assimilation of historically relevant thought forms and the intonational stock of a multiethnic folklore of the Transcarpathian region. We come to the conclusion that the piano works of Transcarpathian composers reflect a historically determined manoeuvre of “catching up” with the stylistic initiatives of the whole twentieth century with its idea of a global cultural synthesis and reinterpretation/neo-restoration of traditions. It has been found that the starting point for the professionalization of music composition in Transcarpathia was the modern modality of style – a position that is usually characterized as a “post-Romantic reaction” to all the traditional and total renewal of musical thinking in order to innovate. At the same time, for the style-forming initiatives of Transcarpathian composers the discourse of stylization became most relevant – a special type of musical thinking that created the newest representation of the “intonation image of the world” and found its rather original embodiment in the postmodern phase under the guise of “intellectual performance.”
La Vie de Sabas le Jeune et la Vie de Christophe et Macaire par Oreste de Jérusalem •
Hagiographies ‘transméditerranéennes’ entre Palestine, Constantinople, Rome et l’Italie du Sud byzantine
Abstract
Based on the stratigraphic analysis of MS Vat. Gr. 2072, the oldest manuscript of the hagiographical works of the Jerusalem patriarch Orestes (the Life of Sabas the Younger and the Lives of Christopher and Macarius), this article focuses on the complex genesis of these hagiographies in the context of Orestes' biography, as well as in the broader framework of the relationship between Constantinople, the Caliphate, the Papacy, and Ottonian Rome in the 10th and 11th centuries.
This paper offers a systematic reinterpretation of the Gārgya controversy, a remarkable episode in the history of early India’s reflections on language. Recorded in Yāska’s Nirukta, this controversy centers on the issue whether all or only certain nouns are ‘born from’ (i.e., derived from) verbs. While Śākaṭāyana and the etymologists, including Yāska, believe that all nouns are derivable, Gārgya and the grammarians maintain that only morphologically regular nouns are derivable. This paper examines the arguments developed in this controversy and argues that Yāska’s belief that all nouns are derivable is not only a linguistic axiom but also reflects non-linguistic concerns pertaining to the raison d’être assigned to the discipline of etymology and to the belief that the Veda transcends history.
Abraham with his son Ishmael •
The iconography of Rembrandt etching B 33
The titles previously given to Rembrandt etching B 33 are not convincing: it is problematic to identify the boy as “Isaac” or even as “Benjamin”, and the use of the verb “caress” is also imprecise.
For all their shared intimacy, the two protagonists in the etching were depicted by the artist in different physical and emotional states: the old man is tense while the child is calm; the feet of the former, turning to the right, suggest preparing to depart, while the posture of the latter hints that he is going nowhere. With regard to their close physical proximity, because of the gesture Abraham makes with his left hand, and owing to the telling positions of their feet, the two figures are closely connected to the “banishment of Hagar and Ishmael”. The work depicts Abraham and Ishmael immediately prior to their parting and after the feast celebrating Isaac’s weaning. Ishmael’s supercilious smile and the apple in his hand allude to the argument with his half-brother and also to the Old Testament. It is at this moment that Abraham hears the voice of God, instructing him to send his loved ones away; the tension in his eyes is directed towards God. Every sinew of his body and soul is strained by the ambivalence of the situation: what he has to accept is the unacceptable. It could well be that just an instant earlier he was caressing Ishmael’s chin without a care in the world, but now he gently starts to turn the child’s head in the direction of the voice, while at the same time, the blessing he is about to bestow on his son is already present in his left hand. Ishmael’s position nestled in Abraham’s lap may also refer to his legitimate descent, to the fact that he too is regarded by Abraham as his heir, as the firstborn “of his flesh”.
The work is a nuanced pictorial exegesis of Genesis 21:8–13; it may have been made in the same year, 1637, in which Rembrandt produced etching B 30, depicting the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael.
Luca Giordano also painted Abraham with his firstborn son, Ishmael, in a canvas that once adorned San Juan del Buen Retiro in Madrid.
After the Treaty of Trianon (1920) the long-destroyed medieval royal centres of Hungary could be used as sites to replace the “lost historic monuments” on the areas separated from Hungary.
In 1934, the art historian Tibor Gerevich, a famed person in Italian-Hungarian cultural diplomacy became the Chairman of the National Committee of Historic Monuments. The Committee lead three iconic works among others during this era: the excavation of the medieval royal palace of Visegrád, the rehabilitation of the ruins of the medieval provostal church in Székesfehérvár, and the renovation of the medieval royal palace of Esztergom. The reconstructions of two of them could have been fulfilled, using the modernist style of the Italian restaurations. Until these works, the reconstructions happened only with additions in historicistic styles. The study examines the transformation as a phenomenon which did not happen so sharply. During the planning processes, the attitude of historicistic way of seeing can be also observed in the architectural renovation practices.
Abstract
This study is a representative text written as part of the project “Hungarian Literary Culture in a Transcultural Perspective”. It aims to convey to readers versed in other cultures the effects of the first complete text in the Hungarian language, the “Funeral Oration and Prayer” (Halotti Beszéd és Könyörgés), as an element of the living literary tradition manifesting in writing and reading. The study consists in a commented and annotated version of the basic text that will serve as a basis for the chapters adapted to the specificities of the different language versions of the book. The text gives a brief overview of 12th century Hungarian texts, and then introduces several 20th century Hungarian poems that share as their precursor the “Funeral Oration and Prayer”.
The castle of Borosjenő (Ineu, Romania), which is largely Renaissance in form, also displays important architectural phases from before and after this period. During the on-site art historical research of 2016 and 2019 it was an especially important task removing numerous Romanesque, pre-1200 carvings in secondary use as building material. The (majority of) carvings we have identified most likely originated in the monastery of Dénesmonostora (Dienesmonostora), which once stood near Borosjenõ. Probably by the end of the fourteenth century, when it had disappeared from the written sources, and certainly by the sixteenth century, the monastery had been abandoned, and its remains have since disappeared. Proof of the high artistic value of these carvings was the capital depicting a siren, removed during the reconstruction of the castle in the 1870s. The owner of the castle at that time donated it to the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest, where today it is a part of the permanent collection. Some of the newly-founded capitals and other decorative architectural elements have very rare analogies in the Hungarian Romanesque architecture, but show artistic connections with the Alsace region (e.g. Sainte foy church in Sélestat). Several other medieval fragments can be dated to a period later than the twelfth century. The paper contains also a catalogue of about thirty-eight carved stone-fragments.
Abstract
This study examines the Millennium exhibition held in Budapest in 1896, highlighting the constructed nature of the celebration which put an end to the debates of historians by a legislative decision, as well as the functioning of the commemoration, the role of visual components and certain other aspects of the exhibition regarded as a central event. It also brings together undertakings from the fields of literary studies and fiction which relate to or capitalise on the period, and which are interesting from the point of view of functionality and popularity.
New research concerning Florentine Artists in Hungary at Buda, Esztergom and the Bakócz-Chapel. The hitherto unknown documents discussed here regard the time from ca. 1470 to 1504. They give us the names of Florentine artists who worked for Matthias Corvinus and his successor Wladislaw II as well as for the Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate of Hungary, Tamás Bakócz. Until now, only the sculptor Gregorio di Lorenzo, the wood carver Chimente Camicia and five carpenters who worked under his supervision in Buda were known. According to Vasari, Chimente Camicia was the leading master who worked not only in wood but was also an architect and engineer who is said to have looked after Corvinus’ buildings including fountains and gardens. However, this can no longer maintained because the newly discovered documents establish that Gregorio di Lorenzo was Corvinus capomaestro. He was in Buda between 1475 and the early 1490’s. Besides his figural works, he was also responsible for a certain Hungarian decorative style that went back to Giovanni di Bertino who was the brother-in-law and collaborator of his teacher, Desiderio da settignano. The recognition that a stone carver without architectural expertise could direct building projects for Matthias Corvinus confirms the view that the extant Gothic buildings in Buda were rather ‘modernized’ than newly created Renaissance structures.
The new documents also give us the names of six stone masons and sculptors so that we have a more precise picture of the Buda artistic scene. Among these, were Francesco di Bartolomeo telli and his companion Simone di Francesco, Filippo di Pagno di Lapo Portigiani, Martino di Matteo di Mario di Maino, Giovanni di Romolo di Tomaso Michi and Francesco di Antonio di Piero. More exact informations are obtainable only for Filippo di Pagno and Giovanni Michi. This enables the suggestion that Filippo di Pagno who was trained in Bologna by his father Pagno di Lapo as a sculptor and architect, may have been responsible for the invention of a double tiered loggia in the Court of State in Buda in order to hide the heterogeneous Gothic buildings for a more harmonious appearance. Palace courtyards with such loggia were typical of contemporary Bologna but not of Florentine palace architecture.
Giovanni Michi is documented as a collaborator of the bronze specialist Bertoldo di Giovanni who was in the service of Lorenzo il Magnifico. Therefore, he belonged to the inner circle of Medici artists which included Giuliano da Sangallo and Francione. He must certainly have been involved with the execution of the glazed terracotta frieze at Poggio a Caiano which Bertoldo created at Lorenzo il Magnifico’s behest. Michi was also a close friend of Michelangelo whom he knew from the San Marco garden workshop and from his subsequent activity as manager of Michelangelo’s Roman studio between 1508 and 1510. Since Michi very probably learned bronze techniques from Bertoldo, he is a plausible candidate for some of the documented bronzes in Buda, such as the Centaur Battle which was undoubtedly indebted to the precedents made by Bertoldo and Michelangelo in Florence.
New names also emerge for the carpenters and intarsia makers in Corvinus’ employ in Buda among whom were two other members of the Camicia family: Niccolò di Nardo and Jacopo di Biagio Camicia. It also turns out that Gaetano Milanesi’s claim concerning the brothers Baccio and Francesco Cellini in Buda can now be substantiated. The most important of those artists was Jacopo Camicia whose artistic career has been reconstructed by the author. He was trained in the important workshop of the Geri brothers who worked for Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici and there made excellent professional contacts. Jacopo was in Buda at the latest from 1477 and is further traceable into the early sixteenth century. He led the workshop which made the burial chapel in Esztergom for Tamás Bakócz. Since 1475/1476 Jacopo had been involved with the first project for the inner façade of Santo Spirito in Florence which influenced the architecture of the Bakócz-Chapel as already noticed in the literature, he may well have been its architect.
The account books of the Florentine merchant active in Buda, Antonio Bini, mention other Florentine artists then busy there and elsewhere in Hungary. Among these was the scarpellino Giovanni di Romolo di Domenico Baccelli who was Giuliano da Sangallo’s nephew. He had been trained in the workshop of Jacopo del Mazza and Andrea Ferrucci who worked closely together with the Da Sangallo brothers. These connections suggest that Giovanni Baccelli and his workshop carried out the two sacrament tabernacles at Pest and Pécs, and also provide reasonable evidence to attribute to him the execution of the ornament in the Bakócz-Chapel since these are closely related to the design and style of the formal vocabulary of the Del mazza/Ferrucci workshop. Therefore, we can now identify the Florentine masters who created and executed the most important Renaissance building in Hungary: Jacopo Camicia who planned the chapel and Giovanni Baccelli who directed the stone masters who carved it out.
The Porta speciosa of Esztergom •
Historical and iconological approach to the western portal of the medieval Esztergom Cathedral
This essay was carried out in the framework of a research programme (Thesaurus Mediaevalis, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 2017–2022) funded by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and deals with one of the most complex but hardly accessible works of the Árpád period, the former main portal of the Esztergom Cathedral, which was decorated with sculptures and inlaid marble images. It was built in the last decade of the 12th century under King Béla III (1172–1196) and survived the Turkish invasion, but its remains were destroyed during the 19th century construction works. Since then, it exists only in textual sources, depictions and museum fragments. The present work aims primarily to collect and catalogue the fragments, but also to examine the structure of this work of exceptional quality, the artistic orientation of its workshop and the content of the images. It examines questions such as the history of the construction of the building, the sculptural quality of the fragments, which European art centres are related to them (including, in addition to the dominant role of the centres in northern Italy, the Byzantine influence conveyed by the various forms of transport), the circumstances under which the artists could have arrived in the Kingdom of Hungary, the inspiration for their art, what their knowledge and the needs of their clients reveal, and whether there were any interruptions, changes of plan or new beginnings during the construction.
Propugnaculum sive Clipeus Christianitatis •
Bildliche Darstellungsvarianten eines europaweit bekannten geflügelten Wortes von großer Vergangenheit in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts und zu Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts
Propugnaculum sive Clipeus Christianitatis. Variants of the pictorial representation of a time-honoured European adage in Hungary in the second half of the seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries. The news of the ill-starred military encounter at Vezekény on 26 August 1652 had unusually strong reverberations in Hungary and Europe. Judged by the contemporaries, those killed in the clash – including four members of the aristocratic Esterházy family – set an inspiring example of moral courage in the teeth of Turkish superiority in numbers: in a hopeless battle they chose perseverance to the end, that is, heroic self-sacrifice instead of surrendering. In addition to numerous quondam utterances including some quality works of literature, testifying to the intrepidity and fighting value of the Hungarian estates, two works of the applied arts – the subject matter of the paper – were also created with the aim of perpetuating the glorious memory of the fallen heroes.
In the years after the accession of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor (1658–1705) and King of Hungary (1657–1705) the politically active Hungarian estates had to acknowledge to their dismay that in the top echelon of the Viennese court the plan of an anti-Ottoman campaign – or any action to retaliate the incessant plundering and captive taking raids causing great casualties – was not on the agenda. A group of the politically active Hungarian estates had to draw the very severe conclusion which was hard to face up to. in order to prevent the slow but sure dissipation of “royal Hungary” they were forced to do something. And since they had no other chance, they were reduced to take the step which was tantamount to the renunciation of the earlier generations’ and their own political credo. Consequently, in their opinion, they were obliged to offer cooperation with the Porte, even if it entailed the degradation of the remains of the country to the status of a vassal state. Obviously, such a step – the ultima ratio – if it were to come about, would entail (would have entailed) serious consequences for the foreign, West European attitude toward the country, the Kingdom of Hungary. In this situation the intention or plan of the malcontens Hungarian lords had to incorporate some response to the prospective and understandable antipathy – and to the intrigues of the Viennese court. They would have to issue manifestos, statements with convincing arguments and forward them to West European towns and courts, first of all to Rome, to the decision-makers of the papal curia from where the greatest influence on public opinion could be expected. The essential message of these manifestos, which are not known among completed documents but survive in fragments in diverse aristocratic archives, was a firm and irrevocable determina tion: the vow and pledge that the population would keep their faith, their religion during vassalage as well and – in this sense – would continue to be the stronghold of respublica christiana, the Christian community. The promotion and stressing of this pledge as well as the demonstration of a peculiar interpretation of the past with the tools of visual art was the original and basic function of the unsigned engraving from the second half of the 1660s discussed in detail in the paper. Oddly enough, it was made at a time – without notable, well known iconographic antecedents – when the Kingdom of Hungary in her helpless situation was getting ever farther away from becoming (one of) the bulwark(s) or safeguard(s) of the Christian community. The client for whom the engraving was made must have been Count Ferenc (Franz) Nádasdy, the mastermind of the failed initiative and head of the anti-Habsburg conspiracy of the aristocracy – himself a sincere advocate and vigorous supporter of reviving Catholicism.
The historic military events of the last one and a half decades in the seventeenth century – the triumphant termination of the Ottoman wars in Hungary, the expulsion of the Turks – overruled the original meaning of the time-honoured adage known all over Europe, the idea that Hungary was one of the safeguards/bulwarks of the western Christian community. Although it might have lost its topicality, it did not fall out of public remembrance. It underwent some modification, some shift of tone, the militant slogan of mobilization giving way to reference to the heroic deeds of the forefathers, to the glorious past, the historical merits of the kingdom, of Hungaria. Added to this – by way of a conclusion – is the profound conviction rooted in historical experience that it was not in vain to persevere above their strength against the pagan world power in calamitous times. To the contrary, the nation owed her well-nigh miraculous survival to it. After all, the fact that her disintegration and perdition could be avoided must have been by the will of divine providence. This idea is conveyed in a visual language by an extremely effective composition, an engraving made in Augsburg in the first decade of the eighteenth century undoubtedly upon a Hungarian commission. What were the Abbot of Pannonhalma P. Aegidius Karner’s ideas or intentions to have this engraving made? In the closing section of the paper an attempt is made to answer this question.
The paper deals with the material analysis of four emblematic stone fragments from Saint Adalbert Cathedral and the Royal Palace of Esztergom from King Béla III’s era. All of the four examined objects (two fragments from the Porta speciosa and two throne arm-rests) have incrustations with red limestone basement and other colourful stone pieces. As red limestone is a well-known material in Hungarian art history with a rich historiography, the paper focuses on the findings of the analyses of other stone materials of the incrustations. The research contains several non-destructive analytical methods, such as relative humidity measurement, macroscopic and microscopic photography and X-ray fluorescence with lithologic description. Besides the comparative analysis of the stone materials, archive documents, the current state and the impacts of subsequent restorations of the four stone artefacts were also studied.
