The thirteenth-century male saints of the Order of Preachers and the Order of Minor Brothers can be found on the diptych of Andrew III (1290-1301) made around 1290-1296. The precious object made in Venetian style was only one of the many that were donated by Agnes of Hungary, the second wife of Andrew III, to the Franciscan double monastery of Königsfelden (Switzerland) founded in 1308 by the Habsburg family where she lived since the death of Andrew until 1364.472 (Fig.1.) The saints of the mendicant orders are only few of the high number of saints that can be found on the double board, and their primary importance lies in underscoring the close connection of the Árpád dynasty with both orders: whereas Andrew was buried at the church of the Franciscan convent dedicated to St John the Evangelist in Buda, her mother Tomasina Morosini expressed her wish to be buried in the Dominican church of Venice.473 The commissioner of the diptych for the future ruler was presumably her mother Tomasina. The half figures of the Dominicans and Franciscans are depicted at the base of the right panel, next to each other. All of them are bearded and tonsured, wearing the habits of their respective orders and their names are written on the images in red. The two saints on the right side are Ss. Francis and Anthony of Padua, while the two figures on the left are Ss Dominic and Peter of Verona. Dominic has a round face and he is holding a book in his left hand and is holding his right hand in front of his chest. Peter has a more ascetic face; one axe is thrust into his skull, the other one in the lower part of his body. His tonsure is rugged (perhaps to represent that his skull was crushed) and he puts one of his hands on the other in front of his chest.474
472 On the gifts of Agnes to the monastery, see Marti, ―Königin Agnes‖.
473 On Tomasina, see Magda Jászay, ―Ricordi ungheresi d‘una regina d‘Ungheria a Venezia‖ in Annuario dell’Accademia d’Ungheria, ed. János Kelemen (Rome: [n.p.], 1993-1997), 99-104.
474 Cf. George Kaftal, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence: Le Lettere, 1986), coll.309-320 (St Dominic), 817-813 (St Peter of Verona)
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Figure 1 – Four saints of the mendicant orders on the diptych of King Andrew III, ca. 1290-1296. Bernishes Historisches Museum, Inv. no. 301. Photo: Marti, ―Königin Agnes und ihre
Geschenke‖.
The portrayal of the two saints of the Franciscan as well as from the Dominican Orders implies that the probable commissioner Tomasina Morosini considered (at least on the level of representation) both mendicant orders of equal importance, but cannot be regarded as an
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indicator of a special devotion to these saints on the part of receiver of the gift, her son Andrew, the heir to the Hungarian throne.
The Cycles of St Dominic and St Peter of Verona in the Hungarian Angevin Legendary
As Béla Zsolt Szakács observed, in the cycles of the Hungarian Angevin Legendary, made in the first half of the fourteenth century for royal patrons in Hungary by a Bolognese workshop, hardly any trace can be seen of the characteristic features of the religious orders, it is rather the saint‘s individual biography that has central role.475 Regardless to their affiliation, all saints of religious orders refrain from public activities, and they are not represented as engaged in missionary or theological activities, disputes, baptism, or performance of liturgy. In the cycles of the saints of the mendicant orders, the acts of charity stand in the foreground. The greater part of these legends depicts the miracles performed with the saint‘s intercession: the saints of the religious orders generally have power over the natural and the evil forces. Moreover, instead of translations and miracles preformed with the relics of the saints, the post mortem miracles are the utmost signs of their sanctity.476 Dominic is placed among the confessors, while Peter of Verona among the martyrs, which shows that the rank in saintly hierarchy was more important than religious affiliation.
The cycle of Dominic starts with the miraculous signs that foretold his future sanctity. On the first image (fol. 90v: I. Dominicy (!) quomodo mater eius vidit insompnis (!) quod unus catulus habebat unam facem ardentem inore (!) suo),477 his mother dreams about a dog carrying a burning torch in his mouth and a shining star appears on Dominic‘s forehead at his baptism.
The fourth image (fol. 90v: IV. quomodo beata uirgo presentauit sanctum dominicum cum sancto francisco christo filio suo) represents another prominent vision: the exemplum of the three spears, and in this version the Virgins asks Christ to postpone the Last Judgement by
475 See footnote 175.
476 Szakács, A Magyar Anjou Legendárium, 124.
477All the images and the first four captions of Dominic‘s cycle are reported in Levárdy, Magyar Anjou Legendárium in Appendix XLVIII,; The capitions in their corrected forms are reported in Szakács, A Magyar Anjou Legendárium, 291-292. Levárdy: fol. 90 v.: I. Dominicy, quomodo mater eius vidit in sompnis quod unus catulus habebat unam facem ardentem in ore suo. II. quomodo nunquam iacebat in lecto suo III. quomodo diuidebat bona ipsius pauperibus III. quomodo beata virgo presentavit sanctum dominicum cum sancto Francisco christo filio suo. For the last four images, there are no captions.
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referring to Ss. Dominic and Francis. The equality of the two orders is also underlined by the next image depicting the two founding fathers embracing each other. (Fig.2)
Figure 2 - Life of St Dominic, scenes I-IV, BAV, Vat. lat.8541 fol.90v. Source: Szakács, The Visual World
The ascetic practices of the saint are underlined: he used to sleep on the ground already as a young man (fol. 90v. II. quomodo numquam iacebat in lecto suo), and even after he made his religious vow he used to flog himself regularly. Self-flagellation is one of the themes that made Dominic a worthy companion of Francis; the other is the distribution of alms. His cycle of Dominic ends with the appearance of an angel foretelling his imminent death, and with two post mortem miracles of the saint. As it was noticed already by Szakács, the first of them depicting a
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woman with candles is related to Hungary;478it is one of the miracles from Somlyó. I believe that the selection of this miracle, which is far from being the greatest miracles Dominic performed, could be motivated by the fact that this one is the most unique among the miracles of Hungary and it can be only related to the country. Although there is no information whether Somlyó where this miracle occurred was still a destination of pilgrims and whether the finger relic of Dominic was still kept here at the time of composition of the Angevin Legendary (1330-1345), it is sure that in 1315 when Nicholas de Castro Ferreo the ex-prior of Somlyó related two more miracles at the General Chapter, they were fairly new. The other posthumous miracle is the vision and the conversion of a student from Bologna. It is not sure whether this was really the last one since the cycle of Dominic is damaged: a folio is missing from the sheet but it cannot be said with certainty if the last one or the last but one. Since the miracle that occurred to the student is the very last one in the Legenda aurea, and there are a lot of episodes between the exemplum of the three spears and the regular self-mortification of Dominic, it is more likely that it is the second folio what is missing from the cycle.479 (Fig. 3)
478 Szakács, The Visual World, 133.
479 Due to the missing folio the cycle‘s comparison to the others remains uncertain. While the exemplum of the three spears and the divine sign of Dominic‘s sanctity were quite widespread in his iconography, the depiction of his donations and the angel‘s announcement of his death are rather rare; moreover, the ascetic scenes and the post mortem miracles are unparalleled, but these are the two features that make Dominic‘s portrait similar to the others of this group; see Szakács, The Visual World, 133.
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Figure 3 – Life of St Dominic, scenes IX-XII. Morgan Library M.360.26. Source: Szakács, The Visual World
Peter of Verona was a saint of the Order of Preachers and a martyr at the same time. That the latter was of a higher rank, it is attested by the Hungarian Angevin Legendary where he is grouped among the martyrs,480 right after the evangelists and the apostles. The length of the cycles of the martyrs alternates between four and ten images. The cycle of Peter consists of four images, whereas the cycles of the other ―modern‖ bishop martyrs, like Ss. Gerard, Stanislaus of Cracow and Thomas Becket are made up of eight images. 481 As it has been pointed out by
480 Szakács, A Magyar Anjou Legendárium, 51.
481 Szakács, A Magyar Anjou Legendárium, 59.
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Szakács, while the vita of Peter is one of the longest one in the Legenda aurea,482 it loses its importance in the Hungarian Angevin Legendary.483
Szakács distinguished two, although not clearly separable, groups of the martyrs: those whose cycles were centred on their passion, and those whose cycles were built on other motives. Peter of Verona‘s legend belongs to the second category, and his miracles are in the focus. (Fig.4).
On the first image (fol. 59v: I. petri martiris quomodo conduxit aerem super populos precaldem)484 the saint protects the people of Milan from the burning sun but, as Szakács has pointed out, there is no trace of the heretic adversary present in the Legenda aurea and Peter is praying for rain together with the crowd.485 The second (fol. 59v: II. quomodo sanauit unum contractum) and the third (fol.59v: III. quomodo sanauit unum puerum de magna gula, et patrem eius qui uomerat uermes pilosos) images relate three miracles the saint performed in his lifetime. Szakács considered the fact that Peter is never alone but accompanied by another friar to be the most significant common feature of these images; the companion is the witness who authenticates the saint‘s miracles, as it can be observed in other cycles of the Angevin Legendary as well. Peter of Verona is depicted alone only in the last image (fol. 59v: IIII.
quomodo fuit martirizatus) when he is killed, although in the Legenda aurea he was accompanied by and assassinated together with one of his companions. The splitting of his head with a falx follows the compositions of the execution scenes.486 It is also worthy of attention that he is never represented either preaching or disputing with heretics.487As Szakács concluded the analysis of Peter‘s cycle, ―the redactor of the codex put aside all Dominican traditions and
482 The vita of Peter of Verona is edited in Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol.1, 421-438. The miracles represented in his cycle are at 423- 424, his martyrdom is at 425-426.
483 Szakács, A Magyar Anjou Legendárium, 60-61.
484 The captions of the images of Peter of Verona‘s cycle are reported in Szakács, A Magyar Anjou Legendárium, 283.
485 That is one of the most well-known and often-represented miracle of Peter of Verona‘s iconography; see Venturino Alce, ―Iconografia di s. Pietro Martire da Verona martire domenicano‖ Memorie Domenicane 70 (1953):
100-114 and 150-167, at 102.
486 Szakács, A Magyar Anjou Legendárium, 96.
487 Thus, the first miracle that in the text was an important argument for Peter‘s assassination, yet in the Hungarian legendary it is just a miracle; see Szakács, A Magyar Anjou Legendárium, 96.
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depicted the saint‘s image with personal characteristics. Curiously, in this way Peter through his healings became similar to the apostles, to whom it was most characteristic.‖488
Figure 4 – Life of Peter of Verona, scenes I-V. BAV, Vat. lat. 8541, fol.90v. Source: Levárdy, Magyar Anjou Legendárium
488 Szakács, A Magyar Anjou Legendárium, 96: ―[...] a kódex szerkesztője félretett minden domonkos hagyományt, és a sajátos vonásokkal alakìtotta ki Péter profilját. Különös módon éppen ìgy, gyógyìtásaival válik az apostolokhoz hasonlóvá, akikre ez a tevékenység leginkább jellemző volt.‖ For the preference for Peter‘s posthumous miracles on his tomb in the church of S. Eustorgio, see Alce, ―La tomba di s. Pietro martire,‖ 14-15.
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Dominic and other Dominican saints in the Breviary of Domokos Kálmáncsehi
St Dominc and other saints of the Order of Preachers figure in a late fifteenth-century Breviarium commissioned by Domonkos Kálmáncsehi (?-1501), provost of Székesfehérvár, and was executed by the courtly workshop of Matthias Corvinus in Buda. Its miniatures were made by Francesco da Castello (Franciscus de Castello) in the 1480s.489 It is one of the most lavishly illustrated Hungarian codices, and the themes of its miniatures are strongly related to the liturgical texts.490 In the art historian Tünde Wehli‘s opinion the breviary illuminated by Francesco de Castello, as well as other codices that can be associated with him (mostly of liturgical character) fulfilled the requirements of high priests who would spend great sums on illuminated books rather than being the representatives of the courtly style of the age.491 An elaborate self-representation can be found on fol. 406r: Dominican saints are depicted in medallions, and at the bottom of the folio, the coat of arms of Domonkos Kálmáncsehi can be seen, andin the initial G(aude) the preaching St Dominic is represented, combining heraldry, image and letter. The two other saintly figures (clockwise) can be identified with Margherita di Città di Castello and Peter of Verona. The saint on the left side of the page is another Dominican martyr, presumably Dominic, the friar with whom Peter of Verona was assassinated.
Margherita da Città di Castello, (1287-1320) the blind and disabled Umbrian Penitent, who had close ties with the Order of Preachers, and was buried in the Church of St Dominic in Città di Castello and had a local cult in the region. Margherita‘s legend survives in two Latin redactions and vernacular one, which is the work of Tommaso Antonio ―Caffarini‖ da Siena.492 In the same church a fresco depicting the stigmatization of Margaret of Hungary was made in the early fifteenth century.493 .
489 OSzK, Clmae 446.
490 For the description of the Breviarium, see Árpád Mikó, ed. Pannonia Regia: Művészet a Dunántúlon 1000-1541 [Pannonia Regia: Art in Transdanubia 1000-1541] (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványi 2006/4), 413-419.
491 For Francesco da Castello‘s activity in the court of King Matthias, see Tünde Wehli, ―Franciscus de Castello Ithallico Budán‖ [Franciscus de Castello Ithallico in Buda] in Pannonia Regia: Művészet a Dunántúlon 1000-1541, 411-412.
492 Daniele Solvi, ―Riscritture agiografiche:due legendae latine di Margherita da Città di Castello,‖ Hagiographica 2 (1995): 251-276.
493 Klaniczay, Holy Rulers, 386.
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Figure 5 – Dominican saints in the Breviary of Domokos Kálmáncsehi (OSzK, Clmae 446, fol.406r)
St Dominic and St Francis on the high altar of Csíksomlyó
The central panel of the main altar of the St Peter and Paul in the parish church of Csìksomlyó (Şumuleu Ciuc, Romania) was made in the same period as the Breviarium.494 It depicts the enthroned Virgin holding the Infant Christ in her lap being crowned by two angels in the
494 Radocsay, A középkori Magyarország táblaképei, 137, 188; Sarkadi Nagy, Local Workshops – Foreign Connections, 137-138.
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presence of St Peter from the right and St Paul from the left side. (Fig.5.) It shows the unique importance of the Virgin Mary as the universal agent for private requests: as Hans Belting pointed out with the help of an an exemplum widespread in the fourteenth century, one turned to the Mother of Christ as one‘s own mother and gained favour by honouring her through an image.495 The two apostles are of the same size as the Virgin, at whose feet kneel praying the stigmatised St Francis and St Dominic dressed in the respective habits of their orders. Despite the equal size of the founders, I regard Francis to be in the more prominent position, on the one hand because he is depicted on the right side of the Virgin, below Christ and St Peter, looking directly in the eyes of St Paul; on the other hand, the habit of St Dominic, who is looking at the key held by Peter, is stemped on by St Paul, while Francis‘s bare foot is on that of St Peter. This panel creates a parallelism between long-venerated saints and recent ones from the mendicant orders. The smaller size of Ss Francis and Dominic shows that they are more recent and of inferior rank in comparison with the Apostles. The depiction of these two saints can be related to the Observant Franciscans had been present in Csìksomlyó since the 1440s,496 and to the Dominicans settled down in Udvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc, about 50 kms from Csìksomlyó) at the end of the fifteenth497 or the beginning of the sixteenth century, and also the whole village was dedicated to St Dominic about 30 kms distance from Csìksomlyó, Csìkszentdomokos (Sândominic), mentioned as Zenth Domokos in 1567.498
495 Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: a History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), 418.
496 The Observant Franciscan convent was founded by János Hunyadi in 1441 and was dedicated to the Virgin Mary; see Romhányi, Kolostorok, 19.
497 Romhányi, Kolostorok, 70.
498 Mező, Patrocíniumok, 67.
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Figure 5 – The enthroned Virgin is crowned by two angels in the presence of Ss Peter and Paul, Francis and Dominic on the central panel of the high altar of the St Peter and Paul in the parish church of
Csìksomlyó (Şumuleu Ciuc, Romania, ca. 1480). Image: Hungarian National Gallery
Even if there is no evidence for the direct connection between the Dominicans in the region and the representation of their founder on the altar of Csìksomlyó, it has been observed a long time ago that the devotional life of the Transylvanian laity was shaped both by the parish church and the mendicant establishments. I agree with Maria Craciun who considers the founders of the two great mendicant orders on this panel as pairs,499 as obvious ―counterparts‖ of each other.
This panel can be further linked to contemporary devotional literature: Christ, the Virgin and
499 Crăciun, ―Mendicant Piety,‖45-46.
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the two founders were the protagonists of one of the several versions of the popular exemplum of the ―three spears‖ which survived in six codices written in the Hungarian vernacular.
The only Dominican church about which it can be known that the saints of the order were depicted is that of Brassó (Brasov, Romania). It can be understood from the account written in 1718 by the Dominican Márton Bartók who visited most of the churches and convents of his order in Transylvania that the original painting above the entrance of the church of Ss Peter and Paul represented the image of the Virgin, Queen of the Rosary, surrounded by St Dominic on the right and St Thomas Aquinas on the left side.500 The Dominicans had to leave the town in the 1530s, and their church and the convent were taken up by the Jesuits in 1716 who transformed the images of the two Dominican saints into their own saints, Ss Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) and Francis Xavier (1506-1552). Bartók also mentions other Dominican saints on the walls inside the convent (but does not specify which these saints were) which were repainted two years earlier. It is not known when the images depicting the Dominican saints were made.