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Serbia was an Ottoman province for almost four centuries; after some rebellions, the First and Second Uprising, she received the status of autonomous principality in 1830, and became independent in 1878. Due to the historical and cultural circumstances, the first stage music form was komad s pevanjem (theater play with music numbers), following with the first operas only at the beginning of the twentieth century. Contrary to the usual practice to depict “golden age” of medieval national past, like in many other traditions of national opera, the earliest Serbian operas were dedicated to the recent past and coexistence with Ottomans. Thus the operas Na uranku (At dawn, 1904) by Stanislav Binički (1872–1942), Knez Ivo od Semberije (Prince Ivo of Semberia, 1911) by Isidor Bajić (1878–1915), both based on the libretti by the leading Serbian playwright Branislav Nušić, and also Zulumćar (The Hooligan, librettists: Svetozar Ćorović and Aleksa Šantić, 1927) by Petar Krstić (1877–1957), presented Serbia from the first decades of the nineteenth century. Later Serbian operas, among which is the most significant Koštana (1931, revised in 1940 and 1948) by Petar Konjović (1883–1970), composed after the theatre play under the same name by the author Borisav Stanković, shifts the focus of exoticism, presenting a life of a south-Serbian town in 1880. Local milieu of Vranje is depicted through tragic destiny of an enchanting beauty, a Roma singer Koštana, whose exoticism is coming from her belonging to the undesirable minority. These operas show how the national identity was constructed – by libretto, music and iconography – through Oriental Self. The language (marked by numerous Turkish loan words), musical (self)presentation and visual image of the main characters of the operas are identity signifiers, which show continuity as well as perception of the Ottoman cultural imperial legacy.

Abstract

In the study I tried to reconstruct the history of the Jewish community of Tállya and their synagogue, for up to now neither the community, nor the art historically important Torah ark has received due attention. After the Holocaust very few survivors came back to Tállya – a settlement in Tokaj-Hegyalja, a region of north-eastern Hungary – and not a single member of the former Orthodox congregation lives there today. The community built their third place of worship in the mid-nineteenth century, pulled down in 1964. The reasons why I found it important to map the socio-cultural and religious environment in more detail are commemorative and research methodological. The Israelite community enjoyed autonomy in choosing their rabbi and arranging all other domestic matters, and consequently, their taste, religious orientation, acculturation influenced the shaping of their synagogue building, the style of its furnishing and ritual objects. For lack of congregational documents, many kinds of sources (e.g. newspaper articles, recollections, biographies of rabbis, municipal documents) had to be interpreted within the context offered by the historical elaborations of the age. It was indispensable to shed light on the system of relations between Hasidism of growing influence from the early nineteenth century and traditional Orthodoxy, particularly because the tendencies of secession also appeared in the Tállya community, and the iconography of the Torah ark of their synagogue is most closely related to the carved Torah arks of East European Hasidic communities (in Poland, Galicia, Moldavia, etc.). According to archival sources the community leaders of Tállya could assert their wish to have the woodcarver create symbolic motifs on the ark despite the rabbi’s disapproval. As the direct antecedent to the composition I identified the masonry Torah ark of Mád, but the inventive, singular style of the carvings bears no kinship with the mentioned prototypes or the altars in churches in the vicinity. At the end of the paper I sum up the events that led to the demolition of the synagogue and the perishing of its interior furniture, relying on documents in the Hungarian Jewish Museum and the Monument Documentation Centre.

Abstract

In the ecclesiastic collection of the Ethnographic Museum there are carvings from churches of the Byzantine Rite including a Passion fragment from Hajasd (Volosianka, Ukraine), former Ung county. It was probably made in the third quarter of the 17th century on three contiguous vertical panels 180 cm in height each. The two outer panels of the three survive. They are predominated by ochre and brown hues with greyish blue, white and black pa tches. The forms are enclosed by thick black lines. Works of a similar character have survived in the area between Przemysl and Sanok.

Despite the missing central panel and the destruction of nearly half of the right-hand panel, the iconographic program can be reconstructed. It is a conspicuous feature of the Hajasd scenes that they reiterate the composition of Flemish graphic series of the Passion. Apart from knowledge of the relatively fixed iconography of the Carpathian Passion series, the Flemish graphic cycles were most helpful to the reconstruction of the Hajasd Passion. It was the wealth of details in the Hajasd Passion that led to the discovery of its immediate source: the series of 51 sheets engraved by Adriaen Collaert after Marten de Vos's compositions and published in several editions in the early 17th century with the title “Vita, Passio et Resurrectio Iesu Christi…”, copies of which also travelled as far as Hungary and Poland. The scenes were arranged in six tiers, the central episode – the crucifixion – probably taking up three tiers of the central panel. The series of twenty scenes begins with the Transfiguration, which revives a local mediaeval tradition: the linking up of the Transfiguration and Easter also explicated in 17th century theological works. It was followed – in accordance with the liturgy of the Passion Week – by the resurrection of Lazarus (Lazarus Saturday), the entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), the Last Supper, the washing of the apostles' feet (Holy Thursday), the scenes of Christ's trial, mocking and crucifixion (Good Friday). The sequence ends with the Deposition, Lamentation, Christ in Limbo and Resurrection scenes. The Hajasd Passion reveals the theological context of the redemption and resurrection in addition to the suffering of Christ. It is a peculiarity of the icon that its master elaborated on nearly the whole cycle of Collaert's works from no. 27 to no. 51, more or less adhering to the original order. The painter's individual abilities are proven by the adaptation of the compositions to the different format, the synthesizing ability and the addition of local narrative details (Pilate's ermine robe, wooden tub).

Abstract

This study introduces ways to unfold the St. Zoerard-Andrew and St. Charles Borromeo Altapiece of Vincenzo Dandini (1607–1675), the gifted pupil of the famous baroque painter, Pietro da Cortona. Created in 1657, it is still housed today in its original position in the Church of Santa Maria in Gradi at Arezzo, in Tuscany. This painting has its own importance in Dandini's oeuvre, not only because it's his first dated and signed work, but also because of the rarity of the imagery of Zoerard-Andrew in Italy.

We can separate two different levels of the image: the Hungarian hermit could be seen as the subject of the cardinal's vision and his role model too. Charles Borromeo was the leading figure of the Council of Trent, and the cardinal archbishop of the Archidiocese of Milan, but had similar fasting and extreme starving practices like Zoerard- Andrew. So Zoerard-Andrew's presence is more interesting in a Camaldolese altarpiece — however they were both Benedictines — than the well-known italian reformator and makes Dandini's work an iconographical challenge.

The altarpiece depicts a scene from the life of St. Zoerard-Andrew derived from the Vita Sancotum Zoerardi et Benedicti (c. 1064) by Bishop Maurus of Pécs, when the hermit in the state of swoon lies in the arms of an angel (iuvenis visionis angelice). St. Zoerard-Andrew, first canonised saint of the Hungarian Kingdom in 1083, had an extremely stiff fasting practice, ate only one nut day-to-day in the forty days of the Lenten period. His bodily self-lacerations were the most terrific ways to earn God, he made for himself a wooden crown with stones hanging on four sides and set on an oak-tree trunk surrounded by sharpened canes. Like on Jan Sadeler's etching, he showned with his clever arrangements designed to prevent sleep as his tipical attributes in this period. This essay contributes to find out appointments of Zoerard-Andrew's and St. Charles Borromeo's way of living with the habits of the Camaldolese monks. I mean they were perfect role models for these hermits of the Santa Maria in Gradi. Finally, I demonstrate in my article how could use up their cult in the order's ideology during the Counter- Reformation and how these elements are interwoven in the iconography of the church.

The Podmaniczky Mansion in Aszód was built in 1727– 1730 by János Podmaniczky (1691–1743). In 1767–1772 the building was extended by his sons, János (1716–1786) and Sándor (1723–1786), who resided with their families in the eastern and western wing of the mansion.

In 1776 Sándor Podmaniczky commissioned Johann Lucas Kracker and his assistant, Joseph Zach, specialised in trompe l’oeil architectural painting to fresco the ceremonial hall of the mansion, located at the southern end of the western wing. The ceiling painting features in the centre the allegorical female figure, a Justifying Faith (fides iustificans), holding the Holy Script with the inscription Sola scriptura. She is surrounded by allegories of different virtues, such as Divine Mercy (Caritas Dei), Humility, Generosity, Hospitality, Temperance, Self-restraint and Right Judgement. On the right of the ceiling the female figure of Wisdom is to be seen striking down the Vices. In the four corners of the ceiling further four virtue-allegories are located: Honesty, Fame, Diligence and the Love of Virtues.

The moralizing programme of the vivid ceiling painting is accompanied by grisaille, statue- and relief-like representations on the sidewalls. The illusionistic statues of Seneca and Alexander the Great represent two classical virtues: wisdom and heroic pugnacity. On the longer walls of the hall four illusionistic busts of four Classical deities (Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto and Ceres) represent the four elements. Above them relief-like mythological scenes are to be seen: two episodes from the youth of Bacchus, the story of Apollo and Daphne and finally the contest of Apollo and Pan.

The complex, moralizing iconographic programme conveyed by the wall and ceiling paintings can be interpreted in the context of the Lutheran ethics, as the com missioner himself was of Lutheran confession. Lutheran teachings on ethics have fundamentally differed from the scholastic doctrine on theological and cardinal virtues and have defined a different canon of virtues. This Lutheran virtue’s canon is reflected in the iconography of the ceiling painting to a large extent. The Olympic deities and mythological scenes featuring on the side walls symbolise the material world, as opposed with the spiritual sphere represented by the virtue-allegories on the ceiling. The overall message of the paintings is that living a pious, virtuous life, conducted by faith, avoiding vice and exercising self-restraint leads the soul to heaven, in harmony with the Lutheran doctrine of justification.

Abstract

My study is concerned with three re-discovered manuscript copies of the Thuróczy Chronicle: Cod. Pal. Germ. 156 of the Universitätsbiblithek of Heidelberg, Cod. 279 of the Burgerbibliothek of Bern, and fMS Ger 43 of Harvard University/Houghton Library. I focus on the Heidelberg manuscript, whose cycle of images of medieval Hungarian rulers has been unknown in Hungarian reference literature on art history. The Thuróczy Chronicle was first printed in 1488 in two editions: on March 20 in Brünn, and on June 3 in Augsburg. The Brünn copy is decorated with 42, the Augsburg one with 66 woodcuts, most of which portray Hungarian kings on their throne. These two cycles of illustrations are among the most important sources for the medieval iconography of Hungarian kings. The Heidelberg manuscript contains the German translation of the Thuróczy Chronicle and an epitaph of King Mathias (on the bottom of the last page). The writing belongs to one hand, apart from the epitaph. The manuscript is ornamented richly in a representative manner. In the first few pages, gold initials are ornamented with green and violet pen-and-ink drawings, later there are simpler blue and red initials. The illustration cycle consists of 41 colored pen-and-ink drawings occasionally enriched with silver and gold, showing the conquest of Hungary by the Hungarians, Attila, the seven “captains” (Árpád, Szabolcs, Gyula, Kund, Lehel, Bulcsú, Örs), and 31 kings of Hungary from Saint Stephen to King Mathias – plus János Hunyadi. The figures are the work of an experienced, though not very talented master. The background of the pictures is filled in by floral ornamental patterns reminiscent of cover paint miniatures. Apart from the one showing the Conquest, each picture is surrounded by flowers and acanthus leaves in late-gothic style, possibly (but not necessarily) the work of another master of high quality. There is a fly on the margin of page f.19v, and a fly and a dog on f.22r. The manuscript must have been made after 1488 as it is based on the Brünn edition of the Thuróczy Chronicle. If the Mathias epitaph was written at the time the manuscript was made and not afterwards, the volume must have been made after Mathias's death in 1490. The Heidelberg Chronicle belonged to the “Bibliotheca Palatina” of Heidelberg, the huge collection of books that was sacked and taken to the Vatican as a part of the spoils of war in 1623. In the Harvard manuscript, another German translation of the Thuróczy Chronicle is found, based on the printed edition from Augsburg. The manuscript had been designed to be illustrated at first, but later on (during the process of the making of the codex) this plan has been given up. In the 16th century, the manuscript belonged to the Styrian Count Ferdinand Hoffmann Freiherr von Grünpüchel. The Bern codex is the only extant manuscript of the Thuróczy Chronicle in Latin language. It had belonged to the well-known French humanist and diplomat Jacques Bongars before it found its way into the collection of the Burgerbibliothek. Apart from their intrinsic values, the three codices that have been re-discovered are especially interesting as they shed new light on the extent of interest shown by contemporaries in the history of the Hungarians and the representation of their kings.

In the library of the Romanian Academy of Sciences in Kolozsvár there are four albums containing hundreds of caricatures, genre and milieu drawings, political portraits by János Petrichevich Horváth from the period between 1824 and 1864. The albums comprise several so-far little known and unpublished depictions of actors of the age such as István Széchenyi, Miklós Wesselényi, László Teleki, Sándor Teleki, Ferdinand V, Metternich or Emperor Francis Joseph, as well as the less widely known figures of the Transylvanian public scene and nobility, and officers of the imperial army. The set of over five hundred drawings, some only rough sketches, are not only intriguing in terms of iconography but at the same time have intrinsic artistic value as well. The main asset of the albums is the representation of the 19^th century small world of ordinary people besides the pictures of representative personages. In addition to unusual themes the artist also challenges some taboos and depicts the abuses of power showing some infamous aspects of the life of the imperial forces, the aristocracy or the clergy.

By occupation, Transylvanian-born János Petrichevich Horváth was a high-ranking officer in the imperial army, and as such he was a committed defender of the feudal social structure and the monarchy, but as an amateur graphic artist he revealed quite a different side of his activities. Although there is no information on his regular artistic training, his works suggest a trained draughtsman mastering refined drawing techniques, with a sense of colour, careful spatial composition and exact anatomical rendering, correct perspective view and sensitive characterization.

The most remarkable works in the albums are the caricatures, which makes scholarship revise the beginnings and history of the genre in Hungary. Though the first half of the 19^th century is regarded as a period of rudimentary attempts in Hungarian caricature history, the unfolding of the genre being dated to after the Compromise (1867), the albums of János Petrichevich Horváth render the Hungarian manifestations of the genre commensurable with the European crop of the genre at an earlier date. Of course, Hungarian art struggling with several problems of (self) definition, institutionalization, lack of infrastructure, etc. did not have a James Gillray (1756-1815) regarded as the “father of political caricature” or an Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) yet, but Petrichevich’s works do add several hues to the general tone of backwardness. As a conspicuous analogy, most caricatures of Gillray mock George III whose mental illness was caused by porphyria, Daumier’s most famous caricatures are of the pear-headed Louis Philippe I, and Petrichevich’s several caricature sketches depict the hydrocephalic Ferdinand V. Thus his works can be taken as the start of Hungarian political and cultural caricature whose artistic rendering and embarrassing sincerity project to us a different picture of the Reform Age clad so far in the veil of the golden age or of the customary image of the imperial forces as devilish impostors.

Abstract

The sculpture, which the extant invoice claims to have originated from the Sant' Agostino church of Cremona, was bought by the museum from Achille Glisenti, a painter and art dealer, in 1895 (figs 1–2). The frontal pose and the compactness of the white marble sculpture of exquisite quality in composition and execution (h.: 52 cm, w.: 21 cm, d.: 16 cm), as well as the finish of the sides and the back clearly reveal that it was designed for some niche. The representation of the enthroned Christ Pantocrator was prevalent in Venetian sepulchral sculpture in Italy in the 14th century, mainly in the 1340s–60s. The Budapest sculpture is most closely analogous with specimens of this strain by virtue of the iconography and style. Just like the analogies, it was probably set in the middle of the longitudinal side of the sarcophagus recessed in the shape of an ornate throne. Although no Christ figure carved separately of the side of a sarcophagus is known, there are at least two specimens of the enthroned Madonna figures far more frequently featuring in Venetian sarcophagi in the same place (figs 3–4). These two Virgin figures were carved for an exceptionally representative type of sepulchral monuments “with acroteria”, which is attributable to one of the most notable local master of the period, Andriolo de Santi.

The closest analogy to the Budapest sculpture can also be found in this circle. Christ Pantocrator adorning the main portal of the San Lorenzo church in Vicenza made by Andriolo's workshop in 1342–44 is almost like a copy of the Budapest work (figs 5–6). It is however hard to decide whether it was made by the same hand or it is a copy. There is yet another carving – that of the enthroned Madonna in the tympan of the portal – that resembles even more closely the Budapest statue in terms of quality, overall form and certain details (fig. 8). Though there are hardly any clues as to the authorship of individual parts of the portal, it is not far-fetched to presume – in agreement with many researchers – that the tympan figures were in all likelihood carved by Andriolo. In this way it is possible to attribute the Budapest sculpture to him, too, and it may as well be presumed that it was made for an above-mentioned representative sarcophagus. Furthermore, the quality even permits the assumption that it might be the prototype for the Venetian Pantocrator series of the 1340s–60s.

All this confirms that the Christ statue and the respective tomb must have been made for a distinguished person. There is however no data in connection with the Sant' Agostino church of Cremona or the related sources that might be linked to this sepulchral monument in any way, therefore the identification of the person is not possible. The client must have been a Cremonese with close contacts to Venice, which may be why he imported the sepulchre to the Lombardian city. The phenomenon fits in well with the overall situation of sculpture in Cremona in the 14th century: there was probably no noteworthy stonecarving workshop in the city, at least all the surviving works are by masters active elsewhere.