Veres Gábor - Berecz Mátyás (szerk.): Hagyomás és megújulás - Életpályák és társadalmi mobilitás a végváriak körében - Studia Agriensia 27. (Eger, 2008)
BUBRYÁK ORSOLYA: „In Deo vici” - Kegyesség és reprezentáció Erdődy Tamás (1558-1624) horvát bán müpártolásában
Orsolya Bubryák “IN DEO VICI” DEVOTION AND REPRESENTATION IN THE ARTISTIC PATRONAGE OF GOVERNOR OF CROATIA TAMÁS ERDŐDY (1558-1624) Despite being one of the Hungarian heroes at the victorious Battle of Sisak (1593) very little is known about Governor of Croatia Tamás Erdődy’s (1558-1624) activities as an artistic patron. This is surprising considering the number of works that survive. Apart from the donations Erdődy made to the church, which were acts of devotion to be expected of a Hungarian noble of his stature, one finds representations of valour as well as the first ever manifestation of a personal hero cult in Hungary. We know of his tomb in Zagreb, and the altars he had installed in the castles at Varazdin and Smolenice, and the heroes’ allegory, the like of which can hardly be found elsewhere in Hungarian art. (Slovak National Museum, Bojnice). Perhaps the closest parallel would be the painted apotheosis of the hero of Szigetvár, Miklós Zrínyi, which, unlike the heroic portrait of Erdődy, was commissioned subsequently by his family rather than by Zrínyi himself. Erdődy usually included his motto (In Deo vici) and the crucifix used as a personal emblem on the works of arts comissioned by him. It is noticeable also that nearly all the works date from the final years of his life, from his sixties. In that period he reconstructed the Smolenice altar too. Indeed, Tamás Erdődy’s vigorous campaign of artistic propaganda would appear to have begun in the year 1620, or thereabouts. One suspects that it was prompted by Ferdinando Gonzaga’s decision to invite Erdődy to join the Duchy of Mantua’s Knightly Order of the Redeemer (Holy Blood) in 1619. It was a form of recognition, that would have gone a long way to explaining Tamás Erdődy’s surprisingly late venture into the world of artistic propaganda. 283
