Mikó Árpád – Verő Mária - Jávor Anna szerk.: Mátyás király öröksége, Késő reneszánsz művészet Magyarországon (16–17. század) 2. kötet (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2008/4)

The English Summary of Volumes I—II

are three times wider than the pilasters. The building has a pronounced cornice, with a frieze bearing a long dedication inscription. This façade has two striking features which have not hitherto been paid proper attention. One is the sophisticated axial symmetry. The other is the atectonic arrangement of Renaissance elements. This, for a classical-style building, is contradictio in adiecto. The North Italian character of the building has always been proposed on the basis of drawing-like design details. But the standard of the figurative carvings is astonishingly poor, unlike anything in North Italy. The all'antica ornamental carvings are dependable stone carving pieces, of a kind with good precursors that many masons were capable of in Hungary in 1512. It is likely that a local mason, experienced in Gothic building, had the task of using classical-style decorative carvings during the reconstruction. What is displayed here is not the Northern Renaissance formal idiom which appeared on the Bártfa Town Hall some years earlier. III. A humanist patron in mid-16

th century Hungary: Antal Verancsics, the connoisseur Antal Verancsics (1504—1573) should be looked on as one of the outstanding figures of Early Modern Era art in Hungary, a mid-century art patron of whom much is known. Three contemporary portrait engravings of him survive. The earliest is by Melchior Lorch (1557), and the other two by Martino Rota, one official and grand, the other a "civilian" portrait showing Verancsics as a humanist prelate. Verancics was most probably in possession of an engraving of Philipp Melanchthon by Dürer, because he wrote an epigram for it. He has long been known as a much-travelled diplomat and humanist who spoke several languages and had a deep knowledge of the visual arts. Unfortunately his letters patent granting arms has not survived. In this, Ferdinand I confirmed the old family for Antal Verancsics and his brothers in 1569. His prelate's ritual book, however, the richly illuminated Praejationalé, does survive. On his mission to the Porte in 1553-1557, Verancsics discovered the Monumentum Ancyranum, Augustus Caesar's stone-carved political testament. The humanists had a general interest in Roman inscriptions and coins. It is also through his a record written by him that the inscription on John Hunyadi's grave in Gyulafehérvár, set up by János Szapolyai in 1533, is known today. He also arranged for his own tomb in his will: he wished to be buried in the chapter church in Nagyszombat (Trnava) and ordered that "a marble monument be erected on which his portrait be carved." Miklós Oláh's monumental tomb with a statue already stood there, and Verancsics perhaps imagined something similar for himself. The chattels mentioned in his will are modest: apart from the mandatory jewellery, his two tapestries represented the objects of highest value. Verancsics' library contained many historical works and manuscript sources, as a humanist scholar he was much concerned with the history of his country. During his Turkish mission he also obtained several of King Matthias' Corvinas. He knew Giovio, one of whose works — on the history of the Turks - he translated from Italian to Latin. IV. Royal tombs in Gyulafehérvár Cathedral : from John Hunyadi to George Rákóczi I One of the most significant tomb discoveries of the last twenty-five years was Ágnes Szalay Ritoók's finding of John Hunyadi's tomb inscription in Gyulafehérvár. Particularly interesting was the discovery that it had not been erected by King Matthias in the 1460s, but by János Szapolyai in 1533. He had a political purpose in dong so: the pretender to the throne, accused of conniving with the Turks, set up a funeral monument to the great hammer of the Turks. Sándor Tóth has proposed that Matthias may have wanted to transfer his father's remains to Székesfehérvár and build a grand monument to him there. Jolán Balogh and everyone who came after her were strongly influenced by the triple structure assembled in the 17

th or 18

th century in the Gyulafehérvár Cathedral partly out of anonymous gravestone remains. These three funeral monuments are those of Governor John Hunyadi, his younger brother, also called János (John), and László Hunyadi, those of the Governor and his son being identified by secondary, modern-age inscriptions. At that time, apart from these three tombs there stood those of Queen Isabella and her son John Sigismund, and large-scale monuments to the rules Gábor Bethlen and George Rákóczi I, which were converted to altars in Catholic times. To a certain extent, therefore, Gyulafehérvár Cathedral became a royal pantheon. It was certainly not originally planned as such. Transylvania rulers did not designate a single burial place equivalent to Székesfehérvár Basilica in Hungary in the late Middle Ages. The cathedral was soon destroyed. Tartar (Mongol) forces captured the city in 1658, setting off fires which also engulfed the Cathedral. Only the tombs of John Sigismund and Queen Isabella remained in a state that could to some extent be restored. V. Hungarian patrons On 15 June 1607, György Thurzó received letters patent from Rudolf II granting an addition to his armorial bearings. The highly ornate document was issued in Prague. The coat of arms is a full-page miniature: the shield is enclosed in a flat niche. The niche is flanked by two saints King Stephen of Hungary on the heraldic right and St Ladislas on the right. The Thurzó letters patent are not the first on which the holy kings appear. The charter granting Lipót Pekh's armorial bearings, issued in Prague in 1598 has trophies above the heraldic shield and saints on the sides: King Stephen on the heraldic right and St Leopold on the left. This is the first known arms-grant charter on which the holy kings of Hungary appear. It may have been preceded by others, but not much earlier, because such figures proliferated in the early 17

th century. Is the presence of holy kings on charters granting armorial bearings unique to Hungary? Of all the many examples, none bear national saints. So the depiction of Hungarian saints may be a peculiarly Hungarian — or perhaps also an Austrian (St Leopold) — phenomenon.