The Bakócz Chapel of Esztergom Cathedral [antikvár]

LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE The year 1506 marks an important event in the history of the archiepiscopal court of Esztergom: it was in that year that Archbishop Tamás Bakócz, powerful both as prelate and politician, laid a foundation stone-doubtless with all due eeremony-on the southern side of the medieval Cathedral of St. Adalbert. It was a simple red marble slab, bearing the delicately engraved inscription in Renaissance lettering: THOMAS BAKOCZ DE ERDEVD CARDINAL STRIGONIEN DICA VIT ANNO MD VI1 This eeremony initiated the construction of a sepulchral chapel opening from the interior of the Cathedral intended for Tamás Bakócz himself. He eommissioned the chapel without regard to expense and the work was earried out by Italian masters in the style of the period. The early years of the sixteenth century, when Julius II was Popé, saw the emergence of the Renaissance. In 1505, shortly after his election, the new Popé eommissioned Michelangelo to ereate his tomb and Romé became the centre of art in Italy. Advised by Giuliano da Sangallo, the Popé considered numerous designs for a eentrally planned chapel with a dome; finally he aecepted the grandiose design for St. Peter's proposed by Bramante. This foundation stone was alsó laid in 1506, on the 18th of April. Tamás Bakócz, the wealthy Archbishop of Hungary, a humanist prelate who had studied in Italian universities, alsó held the political office of chaneellor and was thereby endowed with supreme secular power. He was alsó active in international politics and aspired to the papai throne. Such was his backing that he attended the conclave in Romé in 1512 and he might weil have been appointed to the See of Romé but for an unexpected turn in the international situation. Of all the artists responsible for the Bakócz Chapel only Andrea di Piero Ferrucci, a sculptor and architect from Fiesole, is mentioned by the great chronicler of the Italian Renaissance, Giorgio Vasari. To this very day the attribution of the white marble altar to Ferrucci has never been questioned. Of the two retables made earlier by Ferrucci one is still in the cathedral at Fiesole, while the other is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. From around 1500 the master was the head of the stone sculptors' workshop for Florence Cathedral, and he worked with Michelangelo. Among those in charge of the workshop, and possibly responsible for the decorative work on the sculpture, was Ioannes Fiorentinus, a well-known master of the Hungárián Renaissance. The work came to be realized and, in spite of all vicissitudes, has survived as a landmark of Hungárián and Central European architecture. During the Turkish occupation of Hungary the medieval St. Adalbert Cathedral of