Christian Art in Hungary [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION When the reigning prince, Géza, the father of the first Hungarian king, still vacillating between two religions, established his court at Esztergom and made this town on the Danube his residence—in addition to Székesfehérvár—he opened the finest chapter in the chroniole of mediaeval Hungary. The Roman fort where the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius, had written his Meditations, became the capital of the country and the birthplace of Saint István (Stephen), thus the centre of early Hungarian Christianity. Soon it became an archiépiscopal seat as well with a cathedral founded around 1010 as the first Hungarian church. The Archbishop of Esztergom crowned the King and acted as the head of the Hungarian Church. The Archbishop Job—that memorable figure of the golden age of Esztergom!—at the close of the 12th century resided in the castle where the Royal Palace was situated at the time of King Béla III. The castle chapel, a gem of Himgarian late Norman and early Gothic architecture, and its more or less well-preserved portals are remnants of the exquisite framework that surrounded the court. The iconography of the triumphal arch, the porta speciosa of the cathedral, adjacent to the Royal Palace and covered with remarkably rare enamel like marble encrustment, points to an artistic composition reflecting the peculiar coexistence of royal and ecclesiastical power, suggestive of the Byzantine pattern. It was at Esztergom that the king received his princely visitors, offering splendid hospitality to passing crusaders as in the case of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his hosts in 1189. The town was a flourishing settlement, the citizens of which belonged to the wealthiest urban population of the country. The city of Esztergom and the riches of the town were swept away by the Mongol invasion. The castle was spared and henceforward belonged to the archbishop alone; the city of burgesses sank to a level where it became the town of churchmen and landowners. The new royal residence, Buda, stepped on the road of rapid advancement, and from that time on Esztergom retained only an ecclesiastical significance: its castle and cathedral were transformed into magnificent edifices. The great builders among the archbishops, Csanád Telegdy, Cardinal Demeter and Dénes Szécliy, were followed on the throne of the archbishops of Esztergom by János Vitéz, the head of the Hunyady party. Like his predecessors, he was a disciple and representative of the early Renaissance. His court, his library and collections formed a centre of Hungarian humanism which vied in brilliance with Buda. The Archbishop's residence was no less a noble specimen of Renaissance red marble architecture than the Royal Palace of Buda. As evidenced by the frescoes that have come down to us, Italian artists visited not only