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
his Evangelical faith and his affiliation to the Slovak-language Evangelical community. Job Zmeskal's affiliations were complex, as was common in Hungary at that time. Of Polish origin, the family by then belonged to the Hungarian nobility and Job took a Hungarian wife (figure 11). There was therefore a Hungarian dimension to his affiliations, attested to by the wording of the Latin verse of the epitaph. The poet several times include the Hungarian name of the county Arva (=orphan) in the Latin text, thereby making an allusion to the widowed Job Zmeskal. For example: "ARVA EA VOX HVNNVS ORBA PARENTE SVO EST", i.e. "Árva means abandoned in the language of the Huns", thereby also incorporating the favourite idea of the Hungarian nobility, the their affinity to, or even identity with, the Huns. Zmeskal was retainer to György Thurzó, főispán of Árva, who became Palatine in 1609, and was the greatest supporter of the Evangelical Church in Hungary. György Thurzó had two major residences, the castles of Biccse (Bytea) and Árva. he chapel of Árva Castle is the most intact surviving Late Renaissance interior in the old Kingdom of Hungary. The tenmetre-high altar made for it now stands in Necpál (Necpaly) Church (figure 13). The large central image (380 * 260 cm), with predella and gable field, set among classical columns, is connected to eight paintings of various sizes. The inscription above the central image (SPECVLVM IVSTIFICATIONIS) announces the programme of the altar: it sets out to be the "mirror of justification" for the patron and for believers. This article of faith of the Lutheran strand of the Reformation was formed into an image on the large central painting (figure 15). Interpretation of the altar remained unresolved for nearly a century. Medvecky identified the visual and theological source of the image as an engraving drawn by Jost Amman (d. 1591), and reproduced by Alexander Mair (figure 14). His discovery drew on the work of a Leipzig art historian who had recognized the engraving as the basis of another altar. The painter was Paul Juvenel Jr., who himself came to Hungary in his old age to paint a large apotheosis of the life of Ferdinand II in Pozsony (Bratislava) Castle. The Thurzó Altar is a powerful artistic demonstration of the Palatine of Hungary's affiliation to the Evangelical faith. It was a firm statement of position at a time when most of the Hungarian political elite were still Protestant. Péter Pázmány, the leader of the Counter-Reformation, produced his Guide to Divine Truth only two years later. The title page of that book (figure 26) bears an altar comprising the Virgin Mary as "Patrona Hungáriáé" and the Hungarian saints, just like the Speculum Iustificationis of the real altar in Árva Castle. Pázmány 's work, and its title page, asserts that the Catholic religion is the only true religion in Hungary. A fine example of the opportunities which art presented to the people of that time is the Booklet of the Heart (Vienna 1629), which Mátyás Hajnal presented to Krisztina Nyáry, György Thurzó's former daughter-in-law, who had for two years been married to the secular leader of the Catholic party, Miklós Esterházy. The Jesuit priest Mátyás Hajnal had been hired to convert the young woman. In 1887, Arnold Ipolyi determined that the book's 18 engravings followed the engravings of Antoine Wierix. This series, based on linked text and pictures, was very popular throughout Europe. Mátyás Hajnal rearranged the pictures and himself wrote Hungarian-language meditations and supplications for each one. The Counter-Reformation was at that time concentrating on converting the highest nobles. After the conversion of the aristocrats with enormous estates (Esterházys, Pálffys, Batthyánys), the principle of "Cuius regio, eius religio" meant that old churches used by Protestants were taken over and the inhabitants of the estates were also converted. This left as yet untouched the towns and the middle nobles, with smaller estates. The area of what is now Slovakia preserves the most Evangelical Church artefacts from the first two-thirds of the 17th century, alongside those made for Catholics, who were then in a minority. The higher-standard pictures were usually based on engravings, following the studio practice of the age. The scene of the Last Judgement, a particular favourite in Protestant iconography, was usually — almost all over Europe - modelled on the large-scale vision of Christoph Schwartz (Munich), using either Jan Sadeler's round or Matthäus Merian's square etchings. Examples are the Greff Epitaph (1609) in Lőcse, by an unknown painter, and a mural in the Lajtaszentgyörgy (Sankt Georgen am Leithagebirge) Parish Church (1623, figure 29). On the seven-level Wolff Epitaph in Lőcse, a six metre high structure with pillars and columns (figure 30), above the carved statues of the deceased and his family in the centre, is a painting following a composition by Federico Barocci (1592), Christ in the Tomb (figures 31 and 32). An altar of similar character was made ten years later at the expense of Gábor Bakos, general of the army of Prince György Rákóczi of Transylvania, for the chancel of the Csetnek (Stitnik) Evangelical Church (figure 33). The central altarpiece, Adoration of the Shepherds (figure 34) was painted by an unknown master based on Jan Sadeler's engraving precursor (figure 35), made from a painting by Hans von Aachen. Another painting by Hans von Aachen was regarded by his Protestant contemporaries to be in "Papist style" : the composition of the dead Christ with grieving angels became popular via Raphael Sadeler's engraving (figure 36). This was the basis for the predella panel of the Holy Cross ordered by Catholics for the altar in the chapter church of Szepeshely (Spisská Kapitula). The altar (figure 38) was set up by a canon of the chapter sometime after 1629. Medvecky identified Ventura Salimbeni's etching (Rome 1594, figure 39) as the basis of the Annunciation scene of the gable. The 1644 Birth of Christ altar of the Evangelical church in Németlipcse (Partizánska Lupca) has medieval style wings. Scenes from the life of Christ were painted on both sides of these. The painter of the central panel, Paul Demosch (Demesch, Demossi) of Besztercebánya (Banská Bistrica), had many engravings to work from. He simplified all of the precursors (figures 41—47). No firm style period boundary can thus be determined from the choice of the engravings on which artefacts ordered by Hungarian patrons in the 17 th century were modelled. The choice mainly concerned the painters, with their established practices, but was guided more by availability than style preference. The engravings and books produced for the burgeoning markets of Italy, the German-speaking lands and the Netherlands had to pass through a Europe which had been rent asunder by sectarian disputes, religious wars and political crises before they reached Hungary, on the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire.
