Abstract
The article examines the Hungarian corona angelica tradition, according to which the Holy Crown of Hungary was delivered to the country by an angel. In order to embed Hungarian results into international scholarship, it provides an English language summary of previous research and combines in one study how St. Stephen I (997–1038), St. Ladislaus I (1074–1095), and King Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490) came to be associated with the tradition, examining both written and visual sources. The article moves forward previous research by posing the question whether the angel delivering the Crown to Hungary could have been identified as the Angelus Domini at some point throughout history. This possibility is suggested by Hungary’s Chronici Hungarici compositio saeculi XIV and an unusually popular Early Modern modification of the Hartvik Legend, both of which use this expression to denote the angel delivering the Crown. While the article leaves the question open until further research sheds more light on the history of early Hungarian spirituality; it also points out how this identification of the angel would harmonize the Byzantine and the Hungarian iconography of the corona angelica, and provides insight into the current state of the Angelus Domini debate in angelology.
Highlights
As their Language is peculiar, so is the opinion of their Crown; of which they have the greatest esteem of any other Nation
The article moves forward previous research by posing the question whether the angel delivering the Crown to Hungary could have been identified as the Angelus Domini at some point throughout history
While the article leaves the question open until further research sheds more light on the history of early Hungarian spirituality; it points out how this identification of the angel would harmonize the Byzantine and the Hungarian iconography of the corona angelica, and provides insight into the current state of the Angelus Domini debate in angelology
Summary
As their Language is peculiar, so is the opinion of their Crown; of which they have the greatest esteem of any other Nation. Both St. Stephen legends mention but one angel, the Chronici Hungarici compositio saeculi XIV remembers but one angel in both of its corona angelica episodes, even Edward Brown described the Hungarian tradition involving but one angel. Renowned patron of art and science, whose royal library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana, comprised one of the largest European collections, Matthias turned Hungary into the first land outside Italy to embrace the Renaissance He is a legendary figure of Hungarian history even today, and several contemporaneous popular myths explain him being chosen by heavenly intervention in lack of a fully legal claim to the throne The fresco is dated after Matthias’ 1464 coronation and before 1470, when the name Corvinus, missing from the epigrams, started to be used in Italy.
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