Inaugural Lecture of András Kovács at HAS

András Kovács at Szászrégen (Reghin), 2009

65 year old art historian András Kovács will deliver his inaugural lecture to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences tomorrow, on October 20th (he is an external member of the Academy). The title of his lecture, to be delivered in Hungarian, is: The Gyulafehérvár palace of the Princes of Transylvania.

András Kovács's primary field of research is the architecture of 16th-17th century Transylvania. Based on a careful reading of the sources (many not even studied before) and a detailed analysis of existing building and their ruins, he fundamentally altered our knowledge of this period - the new overview of the field is now provided by his magisterial survey of the period (Késő reneszánsz épí­tészet Erdélyben 1541-1720, which is available online, either chapter by chapter or as a full pdf-version). He also wrote on medieval architecture, in particular about the cathedral of Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia).

András Kovács is professor of Art History at the Babeș-Bolyai University at Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár), and during the last twenty years he has raised a new generation of Hungarian art historians in Transylvania. His pupils have just dedicated a volume of studies to him: the 23 studies represent that high level of scholarship and keen attention to detail that he always required of himself and of his students. (Liber discipulorum: Tanulmányok Kovács András 65. születésnapjára. Edited by Zsolt Kovács, Emese Sarkadi Nagy, Attila Weisz. Kolozsvár, 2011.) This in itself shows the success of his work, not to mention everything that he did in order to preserve historic monuments and to organize the field of Hungarian-language art historical research in Romania. An (incomplete) list of the publications of András Kovács can be consulted on the University's website as well as in the Transindex database (with some further works available online), and also on the website of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. 

With this brief post, I, too would like to congratulate András Kovács, and look forward to hearing his lecture tomorrow!

Royal manuscripts (New medieval art websites V.)

The year 2011 has been particularly rich in medieval exhibitions of a very high standard: while the National Gallery in London showed Devotion by Design: Italian Altarpieces before 1500, the Treasures of Heaven exhibition also traveled to London and was shown at the British Museum. The latter is now also amply covered by a new website, a 'digital monograph' made at Columbia University's Media Center for Art History. In Germany after an exhibition on the Hohenstaufen dynasty and Italy, which closed in February, now the Naumburger Meister exhibition is on view at Naumburg. In Paris, the Museé de Cluny dedicated and exhibition to the medieval sword, titled L'Épée - Usage, mythes et symboles. There were also several exhibitions on medieval manuscripts, including two on medieval fashion. The Getty Museum had several other temporary displays of medieval manuscripts, such as Stories to Watch, while the Louvre in Paris also displayed its medieval manuscript pages.

However, the end of the year still has two major exhibitions for everyone enthusiastic about medieval manuscripts. The first one is already open at the Royal Library of Belgium, in Brussels, and is dedicated to Flemish miniatures. As the press release states, in making this project, the Royal Library of Belgium and the Bibliotheque nationale de France joined for the first time to display and celebrate the heyday of Flemish manuscript illumination by organizing an exhibition of international significance. The exhibition began in Brussels (September-December 2011), and will continue in Paris (March-July 2012). In total, more than 140 illuminated manuscripts of the highest rank will be presented to the public in an original staging, that will showcase these exceptional pieces while maintaining the context in which they were born. The project is of course accompanied by a scholarly catalogue. You can read about the exhibition here or here, as well as in the French-language press release (pdf). 

From Nov. 11, the British Library (London) will show Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination, displaying "a unique treasure trove of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts assembled by English kings and queens over 700 years." The 150 manuscripts in the exhibition represent the most stunning pieces from the library's collection, the largest group of medieval manuscripts in Britain and one of the most important in the world. The Medieval and Earlier Manuscript Blog of the British Library regularly posts on outstanding items to be featured in the exhibition.

Those not fortunate enough to travel to one of these exhibitions, can now browse fully digitized versions of royal manuscripts on the website of the Europeana Regia project. The project aims to "digitise 874 rare and precious manuscripts from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, with the collaboration of five major libraries located in four countries and the support of the European Commission. The project will draw together three collections of royal manuscripts that are currently dispersed and which represent European cultural activity at three distinct periods in history: the Biblioteca Carolina (8th and 9th centuries), the Library of Charles V and family (14th century) and the Library of the Aragonese Kings of Naples (15th and 16th centuries)." Several dozen manuscripts are already online.

Reims, Naumburg - and Hungary?

This week an international art history conference is commencing in Naumburg, in conjunction with a major exhibition dedicated to the Naumburg Master. The exhibition - which is still on view until the beginning of November - is accompanied by a monumental catalogue, published in two volumes, and in over 1500 pages. Titled “The Naumburg Master - Sculptor and Architect in the Europe of Cathedrals“, the Saxony-Anhalt State Exhibition focuses on "the sculptors and stonemasons associated with the name “Naumburg Master“ [who] had an outstanding reputation throughout medieval Europe." The main topic of the catalogue is the French origin of the so-called Naumburg Master, with special emphasis on the impact of the Reims cathedral workshop on Central Europe (there is an entire chapter dedicated to the effects of Reims, with 9 studies - see the contents here). This is not a review, and the following is only based on a cursory study of the book. 

I think that a broader examination of direct connections of Central European artistic centers with the main sites of High Gothic art in France would have been necessary. In this context I definitely would have liked to see at least a few passages about medieval Hungary. Due to dynastic, personal and other, as yet untraced connections, a number of Hungarian monuments from the 1220s and 1230s are directly connected to the most fashionable monuments of French High Gothic. A few examples: in the early Gothic Cistercian Abbey church of Pilis, the tomb of Queen Gertrude (killed in 1213) was erected in the 1220s by a master hailing from Chartres or Reims. The tomb is one of the earliest examples anywhere of the combination of the Roman type sarcophagus and the medieval gisant. Another tombstone from Pilis, this time of a knight, gives the impression of being a two-dimensional, drawn version of the most fashionable High Gothic statues at Chartres. At about the same time, Villard de Honnecourt was also in Hungary (and likely at Pilis), coming directly from Reims - but it is not known what exactly he did here.

Pannonhalma, Porta Speciosa
Detail from the archivolt

Furthermore, the final section of the Benedictine Abbey church of Pannonhalma, consecrated in 1224, would have been unimaginable without the cooperation of builders and stone carvers trained in Champagne (Reims). The Porta Speciosa there (also completed by 1224) was also carved by this group of masters coming from Reims. The masters who worked on the vaulting of the nave as well as the building of the southern wall and portal must have been in residence in Hungary at the same time as their compatriots were working on the Capella Speciosa in Klosterneuburg.

Other churches of that exact period, such as the Church of St Stephen protomartyr in Esztergom or the Cathedral of Kalocsa also followed French Gothic prototypes. Now, much of this is largely destroyed (except for Pannonhalma) - but stone carvings, statue fragments survive in large number. Much of this material has been published extensively in German, English and French, in international catalogues and journals, as well as in many Hungarian publications. Authors such as Ernő Marosi, Imre Takács and Tibor Rostás wrote extensively on the “French connection”.

Conference in memoriam Szabolcs de Vajay

Szabolcs de Vajay, an outstanding medieval historian of Hungarian origin, passed away last year in the 90th year of his life. Of Hungarian origin, professor Vajay lived in Vevey, Switzerland, and wrote extensively on heraldry, genealogy, dynastic history, the knightly orders and many other questions. An international workshop to commemorate him will be held on October 7-8 at Budapest and Fehérvárcsurgó.

Titled Knights, Nobles, Diplomats. Social Network and International Contacts in Historical Perspective, the workshop was organized by the following:

Medieval Studies Department, CEU
Foundation Joseph Károlyi, Fehérvárcsurgó
The Order of Malta, Budapest
CAPITULUM, University of Szeged



I could not find the program of the conference anywhere on the web, so I uploaded the invitation I received here. You are advised to contact the organizers listed there if you intend to participate.