H. Kolba Judit szerk.: Historical Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum Guide 2 - From the Foundation of the State until the Expulsion of the Ottomans - The history of Hungary in the 11th to 17th centuries (Budapest, 2005)

ROOM 5 - The Rule of the Jagiello Kings in Hungary (early 16th century) (Piroska Biczó)

42. Childhood armour of Sigismund Jagiello, king of Poland, by Jörg Seusenhofer, Innsbruck, 1533 to the armour shows Louis II, and is the work of an unknown Flemish master. In the royal palace in Buda, building activity in the Renaissance style continued in the age of Wladislas II, partly to complete Matthias's buildings. Finds at the royal summer residence at Nyék afford evidence of important building activity there in the age of Wladislas. The fragment of a baluster pillar bearing the monogram of Wladislas comes from the castle at Nyék. THE SPREAD OF THE RENAISSANCE IN THE EARLY 16th CENTURY At the beginning of the 16th century the Renaissance style was no longer confined to the royal court and its immediate environment. The spreading of the new artistic style is shown by the Renaissance rebuilding of wings on castles and palaces of the aristocracy and the prelates. An outstanding architectural relic of this period is the burial chapel of Cardinal Tamás Bakócz in Esztergom. Bora into a family of villeins, Bakócz rose, through his ecclesiastical offices, to the level of Hungary's most influential and wealthiest landed aristocracy. He was a typical Renaissance personality who spent a great part of his huge income on the patronage of the arts. The foundation stone of the Bakócz Chapel was laid in 1506, and its altar, made of Carrara marble and placed in the chapel in 1509, was carved by the Florentine sculptor Andrea Ferrucci. The building is the first Renaissance burial chapel outside Italy with a central ground plan and a dome. The rosetta-shaped sculptural terracotta ornamentation of the archiépiscopal castle of Bács (Bac) also belongs among the relics of the Renaissance building activities of the prelates. The spread of the new style among the town burghers manifested itself in the Renaissance choirstalls of Bártfa (Bardejov). Instead of the Late Gothic relief en creux, they are decorated with marquetry, which came into fashion during the Renaissance and which was introduced into Hungary by Italian masters (Fig. 41). The finds from excavations of castles and estate-centres show an increasing demand for luxury and fine articles for consumption. The jugs from the well of the castle of Szécsény are outstanding relics of the glazed artistic pottery produced in the first decades of the 16th century (Fig. 44). The Gothic tile stoves were gradually replaced by Renaissance stoves. The Renaissance stove tile from the castle of Kőszeg was made in the first half of the 16th century. These representations are different from the Italian townscapes known from the works of Italian masters and display the immediate environment, the Gothic towns of Upper Hungary (Fig. 41).