Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)

Tartalom

76 VÁC'S REMAINS FROM THE LATE MIDDLE AGES (1 301 -1 526)

Baluster with the coat of arms of Ladislaw II and the Jagiello family

while the armorial slabs are in the Collection of the Diocese owned by the diocese of Vác. Four of the balusters belong to the set of the choir-rail in the cathedral. The reason for their display in Budapest is that this is the best way to illustrate the close relation between the building works in Vác and Budapest: the carvings of Vác were made in the same workshop as the ones made for the royal palace, they could even have been carried to Vác from there.

There are two more balusters in the Gallery, which do not belong to this batch, they were made of Gerecse red limestone quarried by the Danube and often called red marble. One of them has the inscription of a"W”on it, the initial of King Wladislas II, the ruler succeeding King Matthias, while on the other one we can find the coat of arms of the royal family, the Jagiellonian eagle. These two remnants correspond to the Renaissance balusters of the Jagiellonian era in the castle of Buda. After King Matthias's death Bishop Miklós Báthori - like all of his family - stood by the Jagiellonian dynasty. Representing the new king's

name and coat of arms on the bishopric buildings in Vác could have expressed his loyalty to the new king. A brother of King Wladislas, Sigismund, later Polish king, was raised in Buda

Baluster with the barrel-emblem of King Matthias

for a few years, and in 1500 he visited Vác. On that occasion he might have seen his family's symbols at Miklós Báthori's place. Among the Renaissance stone carvings ofVác the remnants mentioned above are not

the only ones showing loyalty to the king. On one of the balusters of the choir-rail facing the chalice, among the common motifs we can find a barrel, one of King Mathias's emblems.

Among the Renaissance stone carvings saved in the 18th century the most spectacular ones are the two slabs, which can be seen in the Collection of the Diocese. One of them is rectangular with the Báthoris' chevroned coat of arms in the middle surrounded by a dragon in a circle. The dragon symbolised the Order of the Dragon, an order of knighthood established by King Sigismund in Hungary in 1408. This emblem was used by succeeding family members. Above the garland surrounding the heraldic figure there is a mitre indicating Miklós Báthori's position, and at the bottom we can read the date of 1485 in partly Roman, partly Arabic numerals. This date gives us more or less exact information about the time of the constructions in Vác: they must have started in the middle or the second half of the 1480s, the period of King Matthias's reign. Another, similar slab was found in the Castle of Nógrád with the year of 1483 on it; it is in Budapest, in the Hungarian National Museum. The other Renaissance slab has no date on it, its shape is very similar to the first one, but it was put into a triangular frame; it might have been part of a monstrance or an altar. In the present Franciscan

Miklós Báthori's coat of arms with no date

Miklós Báthori's coat of arms with the chevron design (1485)

Miklós Báthori's coat of arms of 1483