Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 13. (Budapest, 1993)

KOVÁCS Éva: Művesség és tudomány a középkorban. A magyar koronázási palást készítésének egy aspektusa

between the finished work and the function of the dress - have their own role. Let's see the analysis of the semicircular shape first. It is certain that the chasuble had been made in a semicircular shape and the finished embroideries were sewn together. There are other examples for this technique and practical aspects also support this." The practical role of the braid mentioned above is unlikely in the case of this chasuble, since the fork cross is not applied but embroidered, with medallions depicting angels on the diagonal and with other decoration on the vertical stems of double width.

12 The straight cross stem is followed by the two (semi)-circular dividing line: the upper one containing the donation inscription and the other, so faithfully copying the "Sicilian border" that several experts mistook it for tablet weaving when looking at the photos. Another relation to goldsmith's works where such "copying" processes were often applied. The decorating stripes are broading; yet the chasuble lacks the bottom border, which, at least to the above logics, must have been more broad. I have always thought and still maintain that the two matching patches on the large embroidery, as well as the closing band are remnant of the former bottom border. The round medallions of the border stripe show busts of bearded saints, but contrary to the row of angels in the fork cross, here the inside of the medallions are also filled with a flowery pattern embroidered in gold. Indeed, following the logics of the composition, the gold border is the broadest. The style, threads and embroidery techniques of the chasuble and the fragments are absolutely identical, even the diverse density of the stitched-down gold threads /Anlegeteclinik/ is the same (52-60 / cm). The ground fabric is, on the other hand, different: the mantle has a material of two different colours, decorated with endless patterns. The fragments are embroidered on plain red silk. This simply means that the border was made separately and it was handled the same way as the woven braids. The vertical stem of the fork cross is obviously truncated at the back; it was probably reaching down to the bottom of the dress, with the stripes joining on the two sides, in the most traditional way.

13 The "glorious army" of saints (as Tedeum, the main source of the pictures says) joins the protagonists of the upper row: to saint popes who are dressed like kings, to deacones, warriors and healing saints, who are named in the canon of the mass, and to the donors. As far as the core of the composition is concerned, there are actually two adjoining parts. The base is the traditional semicircle, divided/seamed by the braid and stripes, complemented by the other "remnant" surface of two quarter circles, where the groups had to be placed. The elongated shoulder mandorlas and the two Hands of God are positioned in the tip of these quarter circles. If we continue the vertical stem of the strange cross appearing around the hands, we get the two side axis that help to organize the groups. In brackets, we might presume that the strange cross indeed belongs to the entity of the composition, though outside the spiritual meaning: it is a kind of anomaly that derives from the high-quality, professional work. A far-away and hardly "self-evident" analogy helped us to outline the basic principle in the construction of the entire composition, in the form of two picture poems /carmen pictum/. They appeared on the first pages of a tenth century codex that was brought to Hungary later (Budapest, National Széchenyi Library, Clmae.7. 2v,3r.). It is especially the first one that can be related to the mantle.

14 The circular poem of a linear composition start from the