EMESE SARKADI Budapest, Hungary Budapest, Dr

Central European University Produced for Transylvania - Local Workshops and Foreign Connections. - Studies of Late Medieval Altarpieces in Transylvania - PhD dissertation in Medieval Studies by EMESE SARKADI Dissertation Supervisors: Dr. Imre Takács Dr. Marcell SebĘk CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2008 I, the undersigned Emese Sarkadi, candidate for the PhD degree in Medieval Studies declare herewith that the present dissertation is exclusively my own work, based on my research and relies only on such external information as properly credited in notes and bibliography. I declare that no unidentified and illegitimate use was made of the work of others, and no part of the dissertation infringes on any person’s or institution’s copyright. I also declare that no part of the dissertation has been submitted in this form to any other institution of higher education for an academic degree. Budapest, February 6, 2008 ___________________________ signature CEU eTD Collection TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD.................................................................................................................................................. 4 THE HISTORY OF INTEREST IN TRANSYLVANIAN ALTARPIECES................................................. 6 PREVIOUS SCHOLARSHIP ............................................................................................................................... 6 RESTORATIONS. THE WORKSHOP OF GISELA RICHTER IN KRONSTADT........................................................... 15 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND ART HISTORICAL PRELIMINARIES....................................... 19 THE HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL SITUATION IN THE REGION BETWEEN THE FOURTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MASTERS, GUILDS AND ALTARPIECES. ........................................... 19 EVIDENCE FROM THE OBJECTS. PRELIMINARIES OF THE LOCAL MASS-PRODUCTION – AN OVERVIEW. .............. 37 TRANSYLVANIAN ALTARPIECES AT THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. THE FOLLOWERS OF THE VIENNESE SCHOTTENMEISTER IN TRANSYLVANIA ................................ 48 INTRODUCING THE PROBLEM. ...................................................................................................................... 48 THE BIRTHÄLM ALTARPIECE ....................................................................................................................... 52 THE MEDIASCH RETABLE............................................................................................................................ 75 THE PANELS FROM GROSSPROBSTDORF........................................................................................................ 87 THE WALL-PAINTINGS IN SCHÄSSBURG ........................................................................................................ 97 SUMMARY. TRANSYLVANIA’S SPECIAL ROLE FOR THE SCHOTTEN-FOLLOWERS............................................ 107 VINCENCIUS. PICTOR CIBINENSIS. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A TRANSYLVANIAN MASTER IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.................................................................................................................. 111 PREVIOUS RESEARCH ON VINCENCIUS AND THE HISTORICAL SOURCES........................................................ 111 THE SEIDEN/TATERLOCH ALTARPIECE ....................................................................................................... 117 THE MESCHEN/GROSS-SCHENK ALTARPIECE ............................................................................................. 125 VINCENCIUS AS A WALL-PAINTER .............................................................................................................. 130 THE ALTAR FROM HELTAU ........................................................................................................................ 133 OTHER WORKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE VINCENCIUS-WORKSHOP AND ITS INFLUENCE ................................... 141 CONCLUSION. THE WORKSHOP OF VINCENCIUS. STYLE AND HISTORICAL CERTITUDE................................... 146 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE TASKS.................................................................................................. 149 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON TRASYLVANIAN WORKSHOP CONNECTIONS.................................................... 149 CATALOGUE (TRANSYLVANIAN WINGED ALTAR-PIECES AND FRAGMENTS OF ALTARS ANALYZED IN THE THESIS) ................................................................................................................. 159 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................................................... 222 PLACE NAME CONCORDANCE ............................................................................................................ 253 CEU eTD Collection Foreword The author never feels a work is really ready when it is done which is the case for this dissertation as well. The topic of medieval winged altarpieces in Transylvania represents such a wide and far-reaching research territory, and raises so many interesting and still unresolved problems that this thesis can only mean the beginning of decades of long work. A number of questions could be answered, others could be resolved tentatively and in many cases it only proved possible to raise issues. The studies presented here provide a selected overview of the larger topic. A brief characterization of the early period (fourteenth and the early fifteenth centuries) of Transylvanian winged altarpieces is aimed at providing an image on the very beginnings of altar production in or for Transylvania. The few preserved examples and the written data on this period’s retables represent important preliminaries of the art of the following decades and also consequently for the two main chapters of this thesis. The first considerable and coherent period of Transylvanian winged altarpieces, although standing still under strong foreign influence, is marked by the 1470s - 1480s. A group of retables from the time of King Matthias which stylistically almost exclusively characterize the period was selected in order to encompass this era. Finally, the heyday of Transylvanian winged altar production is presented through one special workshop from sixteenth century Hermannstadt (Sibiu, Nagyszeben). The oeuvre of Master Vincentius offers a feasible and characteristic example of craftsmen’s lives and work in this period in terms of workshop activity as well as of the stylistic influences detectable in this period. A catalogue at the end of the thesis contains never before gathered data and objective descriptions of the pieces discussed in the study. Although the writing of this dissertation was preceded by a long work of inventarizing, the thorough processing and analyzing of all the 98 altarpieces, fragments or sculptures that may once have belonged to retables understandably did not fit within the framework of a PhD thesis. This work will certainly keep me occupied for the next few years. In the research into winged altarpieces the question of how the movable wings of the retables exactly functioned in their original place, in their original role in the church is still an CEU eTD Collection open but as yet not clearly resolved question. Probably, no general answer exists to this question, the solution lies in several case studies, a topic beyond the scope of this thesis. Thus, I stayed with the two most well-known expressions of “Feast-day-side” (or Festtagseite) and Work a’ day side (or Werktagseite) on these altars, in spite of the fact that I am aware that these expressions considerably simplify and generalize the rule according to which the retables were opened and closed during the different periods of the liturgical year. 4 A complicated task that proved almost impossible to resolve satisfactorily involved the correct and consistent use of Transylvanian place names. These locations today have official Romanian names. However, it would be historically incorrect to use the official actual name, when speaking of a fifteenth or sixteenth century locality. I have therefore chosen to use the Hungarian or German variant where appropriate based on the majority inhabitants’ nationality, respectively the characteristic culture in the given locality in the Middle Ages. Thus, I speak of Hermannstadt (rather than Sibiu) but of Gyulafehérvár (rather than Alba Iulia). In the bibliography, following the Chicago Style Manual, I used the English forms of the localities, where possible, but in all other cases the name-form of the locality given in the book. A place-name concordance at the end of the thesis should also help the reader orient within these complexities and each time a Transylvanian town or locality name is introduced in the text of the dissertation I have given the other two language-versions as well. Names of institutions are used in their official versions. Help in my work, was offered by the Central European University, not only through stipends and travel grants accorded but also through the knowledge and practical help given by professors in the Medieval Studies Department, especially by Dr. Marcell SebĘk, my departmental supervisor and by Alice Choyke, who did the English proofreading of the text. Further aid to my investigations came in the form of scholarships offered by the Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas Lepizig, the Bosch Stiftung, the Siebenbürgen Institut in Gundelsheim and the Országos Kutatási Alapprogram (OTKA), (the latter through the financing of a project

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