Star of Pannonia at Centre of Exhibition

The exhibition, entitled Star in the Shadow of the Raven - János Vitéz and the Beginnings of Humanism in Hungary, shows the spread of the culture of the written word in Hungary. It bears the message: if János Vitéz, who tutored Matthias and became the Archbishop of Esztergom, had not amassed a library of some 500 volumes, perhaps King Matthias would not have developed his own interest in books. If Vitéz had not brought back with him to Hungary his experiences in Italy, it is likely Matthias's education would have been far different. It is thanks to Vitéz that the university of Bratislava was established and the first printer's started up in Buda. He was also a supporter of the first Hungarian poet (who wrote in Latin) Janus Pannonius,

 

Among the highlights of the exhibition are a number of letters - both personal and official -- written by Vitéz, the first printed version of the Cronica Hungarorum and the richly decorated breviary of Domonkos Kálmáncsehi, Provost of Székesfehérvár. In addition to objects from its own collection, the National Széchényi Library has borrowed from the German State Library in Munich, the St. Peter Library in Salzburg, the Austrian National Library, the Vatican Library, the Eötvös Loránd University Library and the Hungarian National Gallery.

 

The exhibition is one of four marking Hungary's Renaissance Year 2008 - 550 years since the coronation of King Matthias Corvinus.

 

Budapest's Museum of Applied Arts will open an exhibition of majolica from the period of King Matthias and his Jagiellon successors entitled The Dowry of Beatrice - The art of Italian Majolica and the Court of King Matthias Corvinus. The exhibition presents the origin of the glazed ceramics in 15th century Italy and revisits the craft's most important centres.  Among the highlights of the exhibition are three of four surviving pieces of the Corvinus-service, bearing the coats of arms of King Matthias and his wife, Beatrice of Aragon. The pieces represent the peak of Italian majolica in the late 15th century and were the first big commission for the ceramics north of the Alps. They are on loan from the Metropolitan Museum (New York), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) and the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (Berkeley).

 

The Budapest History Museum is celebrating Renaissance Year 2008 with an exhibition of objects from Hungary as well as the Uffizi in Florence, the Vatican Library, Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum and collections in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany. The exhibition, entitled Matthias the King - Tradition and Renaissance in the King's Court 1458-1490, opens March 19.

 

At the end of March, the Hungarian National Gallery will open an exhibition picking up where the Budapest History Museum's leaves off - 1490 - to examine the Jagiellon Dynasty.

 

Author: Eszter Götz