Late 14th century frescoes discovered at Nitra cathedral

The cathedral of Nyitra (Nitra, Slovakia) is one of the oldest, most complex, and - until quite recently - least known cathedral building of medieval Hungary. Located north-east of Pozsony/Pressburg/Bratislava, the bishopric of Nyitra was founded before the Magyar Conquest, at 880. The bishopric was established at the seat of the Principality of Nyitra, on the eastern fringes of the Carolingian Empire. After the Conquest, the settlement became a ducal residence, and king Koloman I reestablished the bishopric some time before 1113. The cathedral was dedicated to St. Emmeram, as well as to the canonized local hermits, St. Zoerard and Benedict. The cathedral has a dual church: one dating from the Romanesque period, while the other Gothic, from the middle of the 14th century. However, the entire ensemble was rebuilt in Baroque style. The restoration and research of the buildings have been going on since 2007. Already, this research has yielded spectacular results: especially with the uncovering of a large Renaissance red marble tabernacle (with a frame of white marl from Buda), similar to the ones known from the parish church of Pest and from the cathedral of Pécs. Dated 1497, the Renaissance tabernacle at Nyitra is earlier than these, being a very significant example of Florentine-style early Renaissance carving in Hungary.

Tabernacle from 1497 at Nyitra (Photo: Roznava24)

As restoration of the church continued this summer, work progressed in the southern church building of the cathedral. This is the building with a Romanesque apse, which has been extended/rebuilt towards the west in the 14th century. This construction likely dates to 1378, when such work carried out by bishop  Dominic was recorded. Already at the beginninf of the year, parts of a Late Gothic fresco have been spotted behind a Baroque stone altar dating from 1662. Now, however, the entire altarpiece has been temporarily dismantled, and the entire fresco can be seen and studied. The find is of major importance: it comes from a cathedral church, and the centuries behind the altarpiece saved the fresco from any repainting or earlier restorations. The condition of the painted surface is thus fully intact - and this surface is of a considerable size. The quality of the paintings is also very high - along with the recently uncovered frescoes of Torna (Turňa nad Bodvou, near Košice) they are defitinely among the finest wall paintings from the decades around 1400 from Upper Hungary. The theme of the frescoes is a Marian cycle, with the Last Prayer and the Coronation of the Virgin.

Medieval wall paintings discovered at Magyarlóna

Cover of the book on Magyarlóna
 

The village of Magyarlóna (formerly known as Szászlóna, now Luna de Sus, Romania) is a characteristic village of the Kalotaszeg region of Transylvania, near Kolozsvár (Cluj). The village was first mentioned in 1332 as Lona, and has a medieval church dating from roughly this period. This Calvinist church has always been noted for its rich set of painted wooden furniture, including an 18th century painted coffered ceiling by Lőrinc Umling (1752). However, its medieval origin was also plain to see: even if its vaults did not survive, the Gothic south portal and the medieval windows of the sanctuary survived. However, until 2009, no real research has been carried out in order to find more of the medieval features of the building. As soon as this work started, significant medieval frescoes have been found on the walls of the nave.

Last year, a book was published about the church and the cemetery around it. Edited by Gergely Nagy (President of the Hungarian National Committee of ICOMOS) and his wife, Klára Szatmári, the book summarizes the history of the village and its church (Klára Szatmári - Gergely Nagy: Magyarlóna református temploma és temetője. Veszprém-Budapest, 2010) . The book was written at the same time as research on the building started - and the first results of this are already reflected there. This research was carried out by art historian Attila Weisz, who first identified traces of the wall paintings. At this point a restorer, Loránd Kiss was brought in to uncover and conserve these paintings. 

Magyarlóna, interior view towards East 

Work continued this year, and so far the following has been revealed: There are frescoes in the nave of the church, on either side of the triumphal arch. The scenes on these walls have been arranged in three rows. On the northern side, the upper two rows, while on the southern side, the lower two rows have been uncovered so far. The top row contains scenes from the legend of a Virgin Martyr, perhaps St. Margaret of Antiochia.  As only one scene has been uncovered so far from what must have been an extensive cycle, identification at this point is not yet possible. The second row appears to contain one large composition of the Annunciation, with the figures of archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary arranged on either side of the triumphal arch (similar to the arrangement found at Disznajó). The lower row holds images of saints, one of whom is definitely a bishop. Further images are being uncovered on the intrados of the triumphal arch, and it has also been established that likely the entire north wall is painted.

Wall paintings on the south side of the triumphal arch 

Magyarlóna thus joins a number of other churches in the immediate region where significant fresco decoration has been uncovered. The neighboring village of Szászfenes (Floreşti) has a large set of badly-preserved frescoes, while better-preserved frescoes have been partially uncovered at Magyarvista (Viştea), and the frescoes of Magyarfenes (Vlaha) have been known since the 1930s. The date of these frescoes varies, although most were painted around 1400 (you can read my Hungarian-language study on this group of frescoes at academia.edu). The frescoes of Magyarlóna are definitely earlier, and were likely painted during the first half of the 14th century - thus at the same time as the earlier of two sets of frescoes at Magyarvista. All these villages belonged to the estate of the bishopric of Transylvania, the center of which was at the nearby castle of Gyalu (Gilău). This factor perhaps accounts for the rich painted decoration of these small village churches - although the role of nearby Kolozsvár cannot be underestimated, either. More research needs to be carried out partly in order to uncover more of the painted cycles, and partly to better understand their iconography and internal connections. For starters, a new edition of the book on the church is being prepared, which will include a preliminary report on these frescoes.

Wall paintings on the south side of the triumphal arch 

This post could not have been written without the help of my friends, Attila Weisz and Loránd Kiss, as well as Gergely Nagy, who were kind enough to share information on these discoveries and to provide photographs. You can read more about the book (in Hungarian) here. To get to know other aspects of the the heritage of the village, chack out traditional Hungarian folk music recorded there by Zoltán Kallós in the 1960s - just search here for Magyarlóna.

First publications on the murals of the parish church of Pest

The 14th century fresco of the Virgin of Child, discovered last year in the sanctuary of the Inner City Parish Church of Pest (in downtown Budapest) created quite a stir. I suppose it always creates some stir when a a fresco appears older than the wall it is painted on. The sanctuary of the parish church of Pest has always been dated to around 1400, while the fresco clearly dates from  some time in the 14th century. This then of course calls for a re-evaluation of the construction history of the church, something which is quite hard to do without more extensive on-site research. Already, debate is raging on concerning the date of the newly discovered frescoes (also, some questions have been raised about the restoration as well). A detailed examination of the building and all its fresco decoration, however, is yet to be carried out.

The Hungarian journal Műemlékvédelem published several articles on the building, summarizing the results of previous art historical and architectural research, also publishing restorer Éva Derdák's overview of the uncovering and restoration of the mural (Műemlékvédelem, vol. LIV, 2010/6). The journal is not available online, but you can see the contents of the issue here. Tünde Wehli wrote an article for the journal on the newly discovered frescoes. After briefly describing the frescoes, she proceeds to bring analogies to the image of the Madonna. Most of these come from the north of the Alps, from France and Central Europe (esp. Bohemia), although Wehli acknowledges the Italian origins of several motifs of the fresco (such as the shape of the throne). In the conclusion of her article, Tünde Wehli dates the fresco to the last quarter of the 14th century - a date which requires a relatively modest modification in the building's chronology.

More recently, Mária Prokopp also wrote on the frescoes. She is a noted expert of the Italian connections of Hungarian medieval painting (I wrote on her theory of Botticelli in Esztergom). Her article was published in Múzeumcafé, which is a flashy magazine about museums, and is not really known for serious studies on medieval art. Prokopp's article can be read in the online version of Múzeumcafé vol. 5, 23 (2011 június/július), and also here. A somewhat more detailed version of Prokopp's article is available in the journal Magyar Sion (2010/2, full text available here). Prokopp's study also appeared in the journal of the Budapest History Museum (Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 36, 2010),  in what can be considered as its definitive version to this date. A pdf-version of the Hungarian-language article is available here; there is a brief German summary at the end. Prokopp cites mainly Italian analogies from the beginning of the Trecento, and thus dates the fresco of the Virgin and child to around 1320-1340 (the fresco of the bishop she considers even earlier, from the end of the 13th century). In explaining the significance of the frescoes, she analyses the historical importance of the church as well.

I've had no time to write anything more than some blog-length pieces on the fresco so far. My brief report on the find (essentially the same as my first two blog entries - see part I and part II) was summarized for the newsletter of the International Center of Medieval Art (April 2011 issue), while my report on Hungarian azurite was picked up by National Geographic Hungary (May 2011). Hopefully I'll get to write more about it soon!

The Route of Medieval Churches in Szatmár county

Csengersima,  parish church 

A major research project, aimed at surveying and documenting the churches of medieval Szatmár country, was completed last week, and its results are now largely available on the web. As the territory of medieval Szatmár country is today divided between Romania and Hungary, the research project was a joint Hungarian-Romanian one, funded by the EU. The project documented a large number of medieval churches, including some only known from excavations. The area preserved some important medieval buildings, such as the Romanesque basilica of Ákos (Acâş), but most surviving buildings are small medieval parish churches.

The project consists of the following main elements: Mapping out a thematic route of medieval churches in the Hungarian-Romanian border area (in historic Szatmár county), which is the first common thematic route of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg and Satu Mare counties. This route is supported by very useful and informative material: maps, brochures and on-site information. The route includes 30 medieval churches - 20 of them located in the Hungarian county of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg, while another 10 in the Romanian country of Satu Mare. 

A brand new website was also developed, which contains all the necessary information about the route and the churches. This website is available in Hungarian, Romanian and English versions. English readers should maybe start on this page. The website - even though the English-language texts are only summaries of the Hungarian versions - provides ample information in English on the medieval buildings of the region, and is thus highly recommended.

Csenger, parish church 

Siklós castle

Siklós castle, a set on Flickr.

As an addition to my most recent post, here are some photos of Siklós castle. These photos were mainly taken in 2007, thus before and during the current restoration campaign. I hope I will be able to share new photographs soon, too.

Research and renovation at Siklós castle

The medieval castle of Siklós reopened after years of research and renovation. The castle lies in southern Hungary (just south of Pécs). For much of the 15th century (until 1481), the castle and the large estate was in the property of the mighty Garai family - even king Sigismund was held captive here at the beginning of his Hungarian rule, in 1401. The general layout of the castle stems from this period, but it was enlarged and rebuilt in several later phases. Most significant of these campaigns was the addition of a large late Gothic sanctuary to the castle chapel, built in the second decade of the 16th century, at the time of the Perényi family. Although the castle was occupied by the Turks for almost 150 years, and was rebuilt after that in Baroque style, it still preserves a lot of significant medieval and Renaissance details (see these photos). A large new exhibition hall was created during this most recent reconstruction, which enable the display of these fragments.

The reconstruction was preceded by several years of archaeological and architectural research, which brought to light many interesting finds, including a previously unknown small and painted wall niche. I hope to report on these finds in more detail soon - I am planning a trip to Siklós some time soon, and maybe a guest post can be organized with one of the archaeologists. For now, here is a photo of one of the frescoes in the castle chapel, discovered during a previous restorations campaign in the 1950s.

St. Ladislas and St. Leonard - Fresco c. 1420, in the castle chapel of Siklós
Photo by Attila Mudrák 

Siklós of course preserves many other treasures. I would only like to mention the former Augustinian church standing in the vicinity of the castle, which was decorated with an extensive fresco cycle at the beginning of the 15th century, commissioned by the Garai family. I have written extensively on these frescoes elsewhere - you may want to look at this Hungarian-language article with and English summary. For even more information, you can have a look at my dissertation (especially if you are based at any American institution with UMI/Proquest access...).

Botticelli in Esztergom?

Temperantia
Esztergom, Studiolo of palace
Photo via artmagazin 

I did not want to write this post. A great discovery has been announced a few years ago (frescoes painted by Botticelli have been identified in Esztergom!) but I still remain skeptical. Also, as I have been unable to study these frescoes personally during the last few years, and having never worked on Botticelli, I don't really have a very strong art historical argument to put forward here or in a more scholarly publication. In the end I decided to simply list a few facts here.

1. The medieval royal - later archiepiscopal - palace of Esztergom has been ruined and buried during the Turkish wars of the 16th-17th centuries (see this earlier post). The remains of the palace have been uncovered between 1934-38 in a large-scale archaeological campaign. Two large sets of frescoes were found on the walls of the building: a mid-14th century fresco-cycle in the chapel, painted by Riminese masters (in my opinion), and fragments of an early Renaissance cycle in one of the rooms of the palace. The room has been identified as the Studiolo of the archbishops of Esztergom, and the four surviving figures of the Renaissance fresco cycle as allegories of four virtues.

2. Starting in 2000, a new restoration campaign, led by Zsuzsanna Wierdl was started on the frescoes of Esztergom. Many later retouches, discolored repairs have to be removed, while structural problems of the entire building although had to be solved. This work is still not finished, in fact it largely stopped about two years ago, due to lack of funding. It is to be hoped that it will be continued this year, as the frescoes remain largely inaccessible (link to Hungarian article about funding).

The four Virtues at Esztergom, before restoration 

3. At a conference (pdf) held at Villa i Tatti, Florence in 2007, restorer Zsuzsanna Wierdl and art historian Mária Prokopp presented their findings, announcing that the figure of Temperance at Esztergom was painted by Sandro Botticelli in the 1460s, commissioned by archbishop Johannes Vitéz. The Hungarian cultural minister, who happened to be in Rome at that time, announced that Botticelli frescoes have been found in Hungary, and the international and Hungarian press was enthusiastic (link to Reuters article, to serve as an example). Participants at the conference were less enthusiastic, and lively debate continued as the conference embarked on an excursion to Hungary. Pro and contra arguments were published in the Hungarian press - particularly lively was the rebuttal of the theory by Louis A. Waldman, assistant director of Villa I Tatti, and a noted expert of the period. Waldman's argument was published in an interview in a Hungarian weekly, Élet és irodalom. Other experts, most notably Miklós Boskovits expressed their doubts (summary in this Hungarian article). The acts of the Florentine conference - co-edited by Dr. Waldman - are to be published in the near future.

Fortitudo in Esztergom and a detail from Botticelli's Birth of Venus (Uffizi)
Comparison by Zsuzsanna Wierdl, Studiolo

Hungarian azurite

When the previously unknown fresco of the Virgin and Child was uncovered in the Inner City parish church of (Buda)Pest, the restorer and art historians alike were struck by the excellent preservation of large patches of azurite blue. The cloak of the Virgin and that of the Child is the same blue, and the background of the painting is painted with a darker shade of the same blue (azurite mixed with black). This find reminds us that during the Middle Ages, Hungary was one of the primary sources of azurite in Europe. The mineral (a copper-ore) came from the copper mines of northern Hungary, from places such as Rudabánya. It is well-known that ultramarine was the most expensive pigment in the Middle Ages - but it was very hard to get, and azurite was a good alternative. You can read about the pigment a lot, for example in Daniel V. Thompson's classic book on the Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting.

Paint samples have been analysed from the Budapest fresco, and beautiful microscopic photos of the pigment were made by restorer Éva Galambos - such as this one to the right.

The Virgin Mary from
the Ghent Altarpiece 

Hungarian azurite sources became generally unavailable to Europe after the Ottoman Turks occupied much of the country during the 16th century. There is a classic story, reported among others by Karel van Mander, that reminds us of these historical circumstances. Around 1558, Michiel Coxie was making a copy of the Ghent altarpiece of Jan and Hubert van Eyck (the panels of which are today in Berlin and Munich), for Philip II of Spain (also the Duke of Flanders). As Karel van Mander tells us, Coxie fulfilled this commission admirably. Coxie, however, was unable to obtain azurite of suitable quality - Coxie explains that this type of azure pigment, a natural coloring, comes from some mountains of Hungary, and was easier to obtain earlier, before the country came under Ottoman rule. Coxie in the end was able to get the needed azurite on the order of the king directly from Titian, who still had some. Van Mander goes on to emphasize that only the azurite needed for the cloak of the Virgin was worth 32 ducats. Did Jan van Eyck use Hungarian azurite, too? The sources do not reveal this - but maybe the new technical examination of the Ghent altarpiece will provide some answers.

You can read van Mander's original text in the Het Schilder-boek, in the online edition of the Dutch Digital Library. The story is told in the Life of Jan and Hubert van Eyck.

(See also my previous posts on the history of the Inner City parish church, and on various wall-paintings inside that church.)

Konzilstadt Konstanz

Last week I traveled to Konstanz (Constance), Germany, to participate in a meeting to prepare a major exhibition dedicated to the Council of Constance. This event, which took place between 1414 and 1418 was the most important ever to take place in that town, and it was also the high point of the career of King Sigismund. He had been king of Hungary since 1387, but after his 1410 election as King of the Romans he became a major player on the European political scene. You can follow the route he took to get to the Council, and also through Western Europe to negotiate at the website of the 2006 Sigismundus-exhibition.

In order to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the Council, five years of events are planned for 2014-2018, each dedicated to a specific theme. A special event has been set up to coordinate these events, and you can find a lot of information on their website. The local paper also wrote about the preparation of the exhibition, as you can read here.

While there, I had a chance to see the newly restored frescoes of the Dreifaltigkeitskirche (former Augustinian church). Sigismund and his court stayed in this monastery during the Council, and he commissioned these frescoes in 1417. Of course he had his patron saint, St. Sigismund, depicted - resulting in a famed portrait of the king himself (see above). The German Wikipedia entry on the church is quite useful, and you can also see some of my photos of the frescoes below.

French review of Hungarian art history books

As I wrote on this blog before, a number of books were published on Hungarian medieval wall-painting in recent years. A French researcher of medieval Hungarian painting, Marie Lionnet wrote a detailed and knowledgeable review of some of these publications, which was published in the journal of the French Institute of Art History, Perspective. Books reviewed include the Festschrift to Ernő Marosi, the book of Mihály Jánó on the research history of medieval wall painting in Transylvania - which was mention in this blog post before - as well as two books to which I contributed (and wrote about here).

Marie Lionnet wrote her doctoral dissertation on late medieval wall painting in the Kingdom of Hungary, you can read a pdf version of her conclusions here.

The full text of the journal Perspective is only available on a subscription basis. Thanks to the kindness of the author, and with permission of the publisher, I am able to provide the full text of the review, which you can access by clicking here. (This will open in Google docs - you might want to save a PDF copy for easier reading).

Full citation for the article is as follows:

Marie Lionnet: "Histoire de la peinture médiévale dans le royaume de Hongrie", dans Perspective, La revue de l'INHA, 2010/2011-2, décembre 2010, p. 384-389 (http://www.inha.fr/spip.php?rubrique259)

New book on the frescoes of Johannes Aquila

Johannes Aquila was a painter from the town of Radkersburg in Styria, working in the last quarter of the 14th century. Frescoes by him (or by his workshop) survive in altogether five churches in the area which used to be the border region of Styria and Hungary. Today two of those places: Mártonhely (Martjanci) and Bántornya (Turnisce) are in Slovenia. His earliest known work is in the small church of Velemér, dating from 1378. Latest works of Johannes Aquila's workshop are closer to his hometown in Austria:  at the church of the Augustinian hermits in Fürstenfeld. One interesting secular fresco cycle at Radkesburg was also painted by the workshop (at the Pistorhaus). The style of his workshop is characterized by a mixture of Italian and Bohemian elements.

Johannes Aquila is most famous for not only signing his work, but also for painting his self-portrait. The self-portrait can be seen next to his signature, in a praying position (similarly to depictions of patrons) both at Velemér (1378) and at Mártonhely (1392). These are regarded as the oldest European self-portraits by a painter, and you can read more about in an article by Daniel Spanke (Spanke, Daniel, "Die ältesten Selbstbildnisse Europas? Zur Bedeutung der Malerdarstellungen Johannes Aquilas von Radkersburg in Velemér (1378) und Martjanci (1392) für eine Frühgeschichte des Porträts," Zbornik za umetnostno zgodonivo 34 (1998), 141-159, available in a pdf format).

A new book has just been published on this highly important painter, written by Terézia Kerny with photographs by Zoltán Móser (Kerny, Terézia - Móser, Zoltán: Képet öltött az Ige - Johannes Aquila freskói. Budapest, Kairosz, 2010). The book will be presented by Mária Prokopp on Tuesday, January 25 at Litea Literature & Tea Bookshop. The book is in Hungarian, but hopefully will be published in other languages as well.

I cannot post my own photos of the frescoes here, because the last time I visited these churches I still used slides - and those have not been scanned yet. To the left, you can see the self-portait of Johannes Aquila from Mártonhely (Martjanci), and you can find several other photos online, especially of Velemér:

Photos of the church, with Quicktime virtual reality views of the interior; more photos at the Fine Arts in Hungary website.

For more photos, visit the IMAREAL database of the Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters at Krems (search for Künstler: Johannes von Aquila [um 1400 tätig], or for Standorte: Turnisce and Martjanci. Does not seem to work in Chrome).

Merry Christmas from Medieval Hungary!

Merry Christmas to all my readers! The photo above shows the Nativity fresco from the sanctuary vault of the church of Almakerék (Malmkrog/Mălâncrav), in Transylvania (present-day Romania), dating from around 1400.

Befitting the holiday spirit, I am including two medieval Hungarian Christmas songs here, as performed by Anonymous 4.

                                     

New medieval art websites, II.

My post written last month called attention the a number of interesting new websites. In recent weeks I've noticed some more interesting new websites dedicated to medieval art.

First I need to mention a new database, launched on December 15. The Gothic Ivories Project is an online database of ivory sculptures made in Western Europe ca. 1200-ca. 1530. The project is run by the Courtauld Institute of Art. In addition to the database - which currently gives access to about 700 ivories - the website also contains a news section, a bibliography and useful links. The goal of the project is very ambitious:  "a database which aims at including all readily available information on every surviving Gothic ivory, accompanied by at least one image." The website will gradually be added to through regular uploads.

Full digital editions of medieval illuminated manuscripts seem to multiply these days. One of these in particular caught my attention last week (via www.medievalists.net): The National Library of Wales made available a 15th century illuminated manuscript with the Battles of Alexander (Peniarth Ms 481D).
As the website tells us, this late 15th-century manuscript is in two parts, and both parts were likely bound together as one volume from the outset, probably in England. The first part of the manuscript was written by an English scribe and illustrated by a Flemish artist, while the second part of the manuscript was written and illuminated in Cologne. The Digital Mirror section of the library's website contains digital images of other medieval manuscripts, such as the Sherbrooke Missal.

The next resource is not exactly a website, but a subset of a larger resource. The Fototeca of the Biblioteca Berenson at Villa I Tatti (Florence) started an ambitious digitization project, the first results of which are already available. These include photos of the Life of Saint Francis cycle from the Upper Church of San Francesco in Assisi,  taken during restoration carried out by Bruno Zanardi in 1974-1983.
I had some problems getting to the actual images within the Harvard University Visual Information Access system. You get the full set of images most easily by searching there for "Zanardi". Each image has a subset of detail photos, with high quality scans.

Finally, I would like to mention a Hungarian website and accompanying database. The website of the National Széchényi Library is dedicated to early Hungarian printed books, and consists of two parts. First, the section titled The Hand-Press Period, contains detailed information about 15-16th century printing houses and printed books from the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary, with lots of images. The other section - called Clavis Typographorum Regionis Carpathicae - is a database for printing and publishing that includes all data of printing houses and publishers working in the actual territory of the Hungarian state from the beginnings of local printing in 1473 to 1948. The entire website is available in Hungarian and English as well - making it a very useful resource for the early history of the printed book.

New medieval art websites

In this post I would like to call attention to a number websites dedicated to medieval art. I was inspired to do this by the latest post on the blog 1100sor (1100lines) of Gábor Endrődi - a very informative Hungarian blog on Medieval and Renaissance art. The websites below are recommended not only to specialists - although they are wonderful resources for art historians - but to everyone interested in medieval art in general. They all provide stunning images of major monuments of Gothic art.

Etampes, Collégiale Notre-Dame-du-Fort

Mapping Gothic France - This wonderful websites provides information, images and virtual panoramas of Gothic churches in France. Initiated by Stephen Murray, Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and Andrew Tallon, Assistant Professor of Art at Vassar College, the website was developed by the these two institutions. With a database of images, texts, charts and historical maps, Mapping Gothic France provides parallel stories of Gothic architecture and the formation of France in the 12th and 13th centuries, considered in three dimensions: space, time and narratives. Still officially in beta version, the website is already a treasure-trove of information.

Stained glass from Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
(CVMA GB)

Vidimus - The only online magazine dedicated to medieval stained glass. The online magazin Vidimus is celebrating its fourth year with an annivesary issue - No. 45. Vidimus has a regular news section dedicated (mainly) to medieval stained glass, also listing various medieval exhibitions and new publications. The monthly features - including the Panel of the Month - are short articles dedicated to individual monuments or specific topics (this month to the Fifteen Signs of Doom window in the Church of All Saints, North Street, York and to Jan Gossaert and Stained Glass). I would also recommend the Corpus Virtearum Medii Aevi (GB) website and picture archive (c. 17.000 images). CVMA GB are the publishers of Vidimus.

Haltadefinizione - A website with high resolution images of Italian medieval and Renaissance art. Haltadefinizione provides a gallery of extremely high definition images of the greatest treasures in the history of art, mainly of Italian Renaissance paintings (Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Bronzino, etc.). The main reason for  including it here is the latest addition to the site: a virtual tour of Giotto's Cappella Scrovegni in Padua. You should set the presentation to full screen, and then you can look around in the interior of the chapel (like in any other virtual tour) - then select any part of the frescoes to arrive at a very high resolution image of it. Wonderful (despite the watermark appearing on the images).

Codex Manesse
Heidelberg, UB CPg 848

Two very important Gothic manuscripts are currently exhibited in Leuven and in Heidelberg: The Anjou Bible in Leuven ("a royal manuscript revealed") is on view until December 5, 2010, while the Codex Manesse is exhibited in Heidelberg in the context of the The House of Hohenstaufen and Italy exhibition in the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums Mannheim until 20th February 2011. Both manuscripts are available in superb digital facsimile versions on the web: the Anjou Bible in a special book viewer (the English commentary for which is in preparation), where every illuminated page can be studied and zoomed, and the Codex Manesse in the Digital Library of the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg - with an image of every folio. These two, roughly contemporary 14th-century manuscripts are true highlights of the art of illumination, and browsing these digital editions is highly recommended to everyone.




Seen any good new medieval art websites? Let me know in a comment!

The earliest copies of Hungarian medieval wall-paintings

Máramarossziget
detail of the St. Catherine legend (copy)

In 1844, during repairs after a minor earthquake, medieval wall-paintings were uncovered in the Calvinist church of Máramarossziget (at that time the capital of Máramaros County, today Sighetu Marmaţiei in Romania). Instead of simply recording this fact in the Historia domus, and covering the paintings over, a detailed report was sent to Budapest, to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which had been founded not so long ago, in 1825. After requesting more information, Imre Henszlmann, the only art historian member of the Academy, delivered a lecture on the wall paintings of Máramarossziget in 1847. By this time, Henszlmann has already published his monograph on the Church of St. Elisabeth in Kassa (Kaschau, Košice, Slovakia) and also in 1846, was among those issuing a general call for the protection of historic monuments.

Máramarossziget church in 1846

In delivering his lecture, Henszlmann relied on a plan and view of the church (illustrated to the right) and also a copy of the wall-paintings. He did not describe the copy, and his description of the frescoes is not entirely clear. István Szilágyi, a teacher at the college of Máramarossziget and a member of the Academy corrected Henszlmann's interpretation in a lecture presented in 1850 (as it is well known, Hungary was occupied with a revolution and a failed war for independence in 1848-1849). Szilágyi did not have a chance to see the frescoes himself, but his interpretation was based on first-hand eyewitness accounts, in addition to copies. This episode represents the first true art historical debate in Hungary, concerning a medieval monument.

As it happened, the church of Máramarossziget burned down in 1859. The fire destroyed a large part of the town, the entire roof of the church burned down, and the vaults all collapsed. As a result of this catastrophy, the wall paintings - even more of them - came to light again. This time Szilágyi had a chance to examine them, and a new set of drawings and copies were made. A sad decision had to be made - the remains of the church had to be torn down, with the exception of the medieval tower. Rebuilding the church was halted by another fire in 1872 - the new building was only finished in 1892.