É. Apor (ed.): David Kaufmann Memorial Volume: Papers Presented at the David Kaufmann Memorial Conference, November 29, 1999, Budapest.
ORMOS, István: David Kaufmann and his Collection
DAVID KAUFMANN AND HIS COLLECTION hindquarters in an indecent way (fig. 9). It was mainly on the basis of this illustration, incidentally, that this manuscript could be dated: the figures of the two knights are no doubt an allusion to the battle of Mühldorf, which took place on 28 September 1322 between Frederick the Fair and the friend of his youth, Louis of Eiavaria - the arms of Austria and Bavaria appear on the caparisons of the mounts. 154 However, the two fighting knights are also known in Christian art as the representations of the spiritual struggle between righteousness and evil, as illustrated in Psalm I. 15 5 It is possible that similar anti-Semitic sentiments may also lie behind the frequent occurrence of the representation of the owl in margin illustrations in the Kaufmann Haggadah : in Christian manuscripts the owl is the symbol of the Jews, who - just like the birds of the night - prefer the darkness of evil and sin to the light of the Gospel (figs 16-17). 15 6 Similarly, the occurrence of pigs in certain manuscripts such as the Second Nürnberg Haggadah may bear more or less hidden anti-Semitic connotations: the pig is the symbol of evil, the devil, the sinner, uncleanness, immoderateness, gluttony, unchasteness and wrath, in the 13th century, with the emergence of anti-Semitism, it occurs in Christian art for the first time as the symbol of the Jews, too. 15 7 Our interpretation of this phenomenon receives a considerably more differentiated background and gains in depth if we consider the situation displayed by the Hebrew manuscript in the National Széchényi Library already referred to above (Sefer Mordechai). In this remarkable manuscript some heads appear in the marginal ornamentation which lend themselves to such an interpretation although such an interpretation is by no means cogent. Now, the heads in question constitute only a tiny minority of the eighty-four (or eighty-five) heads appearing in the manuscript altogether. Other - Christian - manuscripts illuminated by the same artist are known from Lower Austria and similar heads appear there also, this time with bishops' mitres and monks' tonsures. Consequently if we interpret his drawings as caricatures then we must admit that our artist was not selective in his dislike: he was equally critical of Christian clerics also. 15 8 Another aspect of this manuscript is worth mentioning in this context. A few of the heads referred to are placed upside down. This strange phenomenon has been interpreted as a result of the Christian artist's ignorance of the 15 3 MELLINKOFF 1999. 35-42 (Chapter Five: Animals with negative connotations), 56-57. ""MÜLLER - VON SCHLOSSER, Bilderhaggaden 1898. 114, 117 [=WEISZ 1906. 124, 125], NARKISS - SKD-RAJNA 1988. Tripartite Mahzor, vol. I. Card No. 8. SED-RAJNA doubts that the manuscript could be closely connected to this special battle nevertheless she agrees too that the manuscript is likely to have been produced around the date suggested. SF.D-RAJNA 1983. 16-17, 48. 15 3 VON SCHLOSSER, Bilderschmuck 1898. 235. 15 6 RFAU 1955-1959. I. 126. 15 7 Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie 1968-1976. IV. 134-136, esp. 135. 159
