Outline of the Exhibition
The goal of the exhibition is to present the personality and times as well as the artistic milieu of Sigismund of Luxemburg, the king of Hungary (1387), and king (1410/11) and later emperor (1433) of the Holy Roman Empire. The exhibit will centre on Sigismund's colourful personality, his political career and his patronage, although other objectives include the detailed presentation of the cultural and artistic phenomena and works associated with the emperor's lifework. Special emphasis will be given to those elements that place both the ruler's mode of thinking and Central Europe as a cultural region in new light. The concept for the exhibit was developed around an exhibition proposal ('Reformatio Sigismundi') drafted by Roland Recht and Erno Marosi in 1996. Details of the exhibition have been developed since 2001, and a Program Office was set up in 2003 to realize the exhibition.
Central themes of the exhibition:
I. The Angevin Inheritance
The powerful opening section of the exhibition will present the remains of courtly culture from Hungary from the 1370-1380s, the last phase of the rule of the Angevin dynasty. It was this sophisticated courtly milieu where the young Sigismund, as the fiancée of Mary, was raised. The high quality of metalwork and goldsmith art is represented by the series of Angevin crowns and the works associated with the Hungarian chapel at Aachen, while the refined nature of courtly sculpture is best evoked by statues and reliefs from the bishop's chapel at Pécs and fragments of royal funerary monuments from Székesfehérvár. Monuments and seals associated with the last members of the Angevin dynasty, Queen Mary, Hedwig and Charles II, will also be exhibited in this section.
II. Portraits of Sigismund
In this section the main character of the exhibition, King and Emperor Sigismund himself appears before the visitors in the form of a rich gallery of portraits. The central theme is the analysis of the individual portraits of Sigismund. This period saw the emergence of real portraiture based on a real-life study of the sitter (cf. the drawings of Pisanello) instead of an official image, where the holder of an office was identified through his coats of arms and insignia. The most frequently depicted personality of the period was no doubt Sigismund himself, whose characteristic profile and large hat also appears in dozens of hidden portraits. The chapter includes the true portrait likenesses of Sigismund, as well as the series of his hidden and disguised portraits.
III. Coins and Seals
This chapter will present the full series of the Hungarian and imperial seals of Sigismund, as well as coins issued by him in Hungary and in the Empire as well. In the exhibition, seals will be exhibited on charters at the places where they belong because of their content, but the catalogue will provide the full corpus of his seals.
IV. The World of the Knights of the Dragon
The exhibition reaches one of its high points in this section, dedicated to Sigismund as a patron of the arts. The first focus of the section is his central residence at Buda. He always returned there from his long trips abroad, although after 1426 Pozsony (today Bratislava) emerged as his new seat. Evidence of the high level of court art at Buda, the statue find of 1974, needs to be presented in its European artistic context. The recently excavated statues from the priory of St. Sigismund, once standing next to the royal castle, could serve as a complement to this ensemble.
The exhibition will also present the splendid monuments of the luxury arts of the royal court. Objects of royal display and representation, table decorations, jewels and ceremonial swords will be included along with the series of bone saddles associated with Sigismund's Order of the Dragon. A chief aim of the exhibition is to present all the surviving monuments associated with the Order of the Dragon, a knightly order founded by Sigismund in 1408. Placed in the context of contemporary European knightly orders, the display of insignia once worn by rulers and aristocrats would well demonstrate the international nature of the court of Sigismund. The aristocrats from the court of Sigismund will be represented through their heraldic monuments and artistic commissions.
V. Sigismund as a European Political Leader
This part will be devoted to those events and themes from the life of Sigismund that had a European significance (such as the battle of Nicopolis or the Council of Constance), culminating in his imperial coronation in Rome in 1433. The first topic to be demonstrated will be the defence of Hungary against the raising power of the Ottoman Empire. After the disastrous defeat at Nicopolis in 1396, Sigismund built up a defensive system. It is in this context that his connections with the rulers of neighbouring Bosnia and the Romanian principalities will be discussed.
The imperial policies of Sigismund after his 1410 election as King of the Romans and his diplomatic activities will also be included in this chapter. The chief event of his career was the Council of Constance. His coronations and extensive travels - including the Romzug of 1432-33 – will be shown through pictorial and other sources, as well as artworks associated with the events, bringing this phase of history to life.
VI. Succession and Memory
This final historical unit will display the remains of Várad cathedral, Sigismund’s chosen burial place in 1437. The figure of the emperor, as it appears in later chronicles and historical images will also be part of this section, with special attention given to his memory in Nuremberg. The immediate successors of Sigismund, the first Habsburg kings on the throne of Hungary – Albrecht I and Ladislas V – will appear in portraits, manuscripts and seals.
VII. Art of the Sigismund Era in the Kingdom of Hungary: The International Gothic
The last unit and high point of the exhibition will present the art of the Kingdom of Hungary from the age of Sigismund, placed in their Central European artistic context. Attention would focus on Hungarian monuments from the International Gothic – a group of artworks much less known internationally than contemporary Bohemian works – among them such outstanding pieces as the large wooden statues from Barka (Budapest, National Gallery) or the important group of stone sculptures from Nagyszeben (Sibiu, Brukenthal Museum). In the field of painting, the masterful triptych of Thomas of Kolozsvár (1427, Esztergom, Christian Museum) would be presented along with analogies from Austria, Bohemia and Northern Italy. Miniature painting in the Soft Style from the 1410-1420s would be represented by codices from Hungary (Kremnica, Pozsony, Vác) and related works from Austria, demonstrating the existence of a sophisticated production more or less independent of the royal court. The circle of Petrus Lantregen von Österreich, whose signed statue group stands in Nagyszeben, would similarly demonstrate the high quality art in the towns of the kingdom – a phenomenon which bears witness to the success of Sigismund's policies regarding the towns. Regarding goldsmith works, the first examples of the Hungarian filigree enamel come from the royal court, but later works attest to its rapid spread among the towns as well.
