Kódextöredékek Pauer János székesfehérvári püspök inkunábulumaiban

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

In the late 19th century a few Quattrocento initials and border ornaments were glued into the incunabula of the Pauer collection in the Episcopal Library of Székesfehérvár. The pictures are by Venetian illuminators painted for liturgical choir books. Bishop of Székesfehérvár János Pauer collected incunabula between 1879 and 1886 and probably obtained five complete large manuscript folios at that time as well. The parchment sheets were probably cut up by printer Kálmán Számmer upon the bishop's commission. Számmer completed the missing initials with hand painting, coloured the printed initials and sometimes composed colourful letters or a whole ornate title-page around a 15th century manuscript fragment stuck into the incunabulum. Among the fragments the most significant pieces are Cristoforo Cortese's signed initial showing St Francis enthroned surrounded by the host of angels and another Cortese fragment of two Franciscan monks. Similarly to the initial showing St Francis' death in the Wildenstein collection (Paris, Musée Marmottan), the illumination was presumably made after 1426, following Cortese's move to Bologna. The closest analogy of the Székesfehérvár composition is a Maiestas domini miniature painted by the “master of 1346” of Bologna. Originally, the codex from which the folio illuminated by Cortese comes was possibly made for a Franciscan community in Bologna, perhaps the Santi Ludovico e Alessio Convent of St Clare nuns ransacked by Napoleon's troops in 1798. The depiction of St Francis surrounded by adoring angels is remarkable for its iconography because it is a so-far unknown variant of the Franciscus alter Christus idea. The illuminator of the other four large initials showing half-length figures of prophets in Székesfehérvár is a later follower of the Master of San Michele a Murano. So far research has linked up three works by this master; the Székesfehérvár pictures show very close kinship with two initials dated to 1470 (New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, and private collection, resp.).