Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 13. (Budapest, 1993)
MIKÓ Árpád: „Pogánypénzes" kehely a 16. század elejéről
gold coins. The earlier owner is also named: Item calix condam venerabilis Vdalrici custodis cum quibus aureis monetis antiquis interpositis} 0 The Nyitra chalice has never been described in exact numismatic terms; in 1913 it also showed an "incomplete escutcheon" with "V and G letters". It is possible that G was a misread C, in this case the abbreviation stood for V[dalricus] Cfustos]. 11 The 1531 inventory lists six further treasures from the bequest of Udalricus, the guarding prebend of the cathedral chapel: a silver bowl, a missale, a corporal, two chasubles and a French tapestry. 12 Udalricus Budai was a significant personality of the Gyulafehérvár humanist circle, which had been founded while László Geréb (the nephew of King Matthias) was the bishop. According to a contemporary biographer his personality magnetically attracted everybody. Little is known about his life (according to an uncertain hypothesis, he was studying at the Viennese university from 1483 13 ). The only thing that we know for certain is lhat he was the guarding prebend of the chapel from 1504 until his death (1523). H In 1522, he offered the Bolognese issue of the Plutarch and Demosthenes translations of Janus Pannonius to his protege, Adorján Wolphard (he was the one to direct Wolphard's attention to the manuscript). 15 His coat of arms, carved in stone with a short distich, was put above the western door of the chapel by János Lázói, the archdeacon of Telegd. Udalricus's spiritual circle included also János Megyericsei, the archdeacon of Kolozs, who had been travelling all through Italy and was collecting Roman inscriptions (in fact, he was the founder of the Dacian epigraph) 17 ; Salathiel Tordai, the archdeacon of Doboka, who was collecting ancient Roman stones 18 ; Tamás Pelei, a follower of Erasmus, who acknowledged Udalricus's merit in his articles on Erasmus's Adagia volume 79 ; and, for a short time, Stcphanus Taurinus, the author of Stauromachia, who came to Gyulafehérvár from the Esztergom court of Bakócz. 20 These were the most significant personalities in the circle, interested both in antique texts and objects. This explains the "aH'antica" elements of János Lázói's chapel, one of the most beautiful and earliest monuments of Transylvanian Renaissance architecture. It was a spiritual enviroiunent that merged classical erudition and Christian belief, an atmosphere where the idea of Udalricus Budai's chalice with "pagan coins" could have been conjured and realized. Later, in the sixteenth and especially in the seventeenth century, this became a fairly popular trend in goldsmith's art; however, the chalice was an early relic of the trend 21 , and, without doubt, the earliest in Transylvania. Being an equipment of Christian liturgy, on the other hand, it is unique with it peculiar "heathenism". Its structure is identical with that of Late Gothic chalices; the elements of the decoration, however, use a great number of Renaissance motifs. Between the lobes of the foot there is Gothic foliage; cherub heads fill the triangles beside the coins on the node and the cup. Beside the laurel ornament the endless chain of adjoining ogees can already be seen. It is a special symbiosis of two ways of decoration, which is usual on goldsmith's works of the early sixteenth century 22 and is also present in other fields of art, from stone carvings to bookbindings or triptychs. Needless to say that it appears on the building of the Lázói chapel as well. Unfortunately, another unique - and irreplaceable - relic of this humanist circle, the tomb of János Megyericsei in Gyulafehérvár (1507) has been damaged; looking at its inscription,
