Inscription on the Votive Painting of Vladislaus II

The votive picture of Vladislaus II in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Buda-pest is an outstanding work of the Jagiellonian court art. The panel, attributed to the court painter of Emperor Maximilian I, Bernhard Strigel, shows Saint Ladislaus recommending Vladislaus II and his children under the protection of the Virgin. The historical source value of the work is reduced by the fact that the facial features of its characters have become victims of iconoclasm. Previous research considered the inscription of the scroll wrapped around the axe of St. Ladislaus to be illegible. The partial reading of the heavily worn inscription published here confirms its supposed votive nature and suggests that the person who commissioned the panel – as opposed to the assumptions that it would be a commission of Maximilian I – was Vladislaus II himself.


S T U D I E S Miklós Gálos -Mátyás Darvas
window opening offers a view of a hilly landscape and a castle on the waterfront. 6In front of the throne, as if descending from it, kneels King Vladislaus II, followed by his two children, Louis and Anne.All three clasp their hands in prayer.While the little Louis looks ahead, Vladislaus and his daughter fix their eyes on the apparition visible in the window opening.
The figure of the Virgin holding the Child appears in a dark cloud in the sky.The Virgin is surrounded by a golden mandorla, she wears a wreath of roses and a crown on her head.
Between the earthly and heavenly spheres, Saint Ladislaus of Hungary, the patron saint of the king and his predecessor on the Hungarian throne is the mediator.He embraces the king with his right hand, and points to the king with his left, offering him to the protection of the Virgin.The blessing gesture of the Child indicates the acceptance of the offering.
Vladislaus does not have a crown on his head, his attire -the coat with its fur collar (Schaube in German) -is also bourgeois in its nature.The clothing of the royal children is similarly modest.At the same time, the king can clearly be identified by the Polish and Hungarian-Dalmatian-Bohemian coats of arms visible in the right corner, which refer to the king's origin and his kingdoms. 7Saint Ladislaus does not appear as a knight, but as a king, so he is not wearing his usual armour, but a green velvet dress and a red cloak. 8He wears the crown missing from the Hungarian coat of arms and holds his attribute, the battle axe, in his hand. 9The scroll with the blurred inscription is wound on the handle of his axe.
The age of the royal children is the surest clue to date the picture.Anne was born in July 1503, while Louis in July 1506.In the picture, Anne looks to be ten to twelve years old, while Louis six to eight years old, so the picture can be dated to around 1512-1515.However, Vladislaus was clearly portrayed by the painter as too young.At that time, the king was already in his late fifties, ailing badly, and died in 1516.His presence here as a young king is an idealized representation.
We should mention here the significant damage to the picture, as a result of which the faces of the figures have not been preserved.As the picture was restored in 1982, it became clear that the faces of the two children, of the king, and even of Saint Ladislaus were deliberately destroyed with cross-shaped cuts.The motivation of the iconoclast is unknown, but it was hardly directed against Christianity, as it did not hurt the Virgin and the Child.The most scratched face is that of Vladislaus, his face was perhaps repainted as early as the 17th The Polish coat of arms is inaccurate, the eagle looks to the right.It is also strange that the Dalmatian coat of arms is heraldically placed before the Bohemian coat of arms.However, the unusual use of glaze in the Dalmatian coat of arms is not without precedent, other 15-16th century depictions also have the golden leopard heads in a red field.Körmendi 2013, 393.8  The woodcut of the Thuróczy Chronicle (Brno, 1488) also depicts Saint Ladislaus as a king wearing a robe.9 The transfer of the crown from the coat of arms to the head of the saint was noticed by Végh 1972,  No. 34-35. 1 0 . 5 3 6 4 4 / E H . 2 0 2 3 . 2 . 3 6 2023.2. | EPHEMERIS HUNGAROLOGICA | 3 9

S T U D I E S Miklós Gálos -Mátyás Darvas
century.The other damaged faces were retouched only in the 19th century.Except for the damage to Vladislaus' head, the rest of the repainting was removed in 1982, but the faces were not reconstructed for the sake of historical authenticity.They can thus be seen today in a ruined state, while the old reconstruction remained on the face of Vladislaus.10It is possible that at the time the painting was destroyed, the backgammon board, seen to date, was painted on the back of the panel.
Research unanimously considers Bernard Strigel (Memmingen, 1460/1461 -Memmingen, 1528) to be the master of the picture.11Bernhard Strigel belonged to a successful family of artists in the South German town of Memmingen.He was the court painter to Emperor Maximilian I, in whose service he repeatedly journeyed to Vienna, Augsburg and Innsbruck.This attribution was already raised before the picture appeared in Hungary.Based on the label on the back of the panel, it was in the possession of the German painter Ernst Oppler (1867-1929)  at the beginning of the 20th century, where it already bore an attribution to Strigel. 12 While the attribution seems certain, the circumstances of the commission of the work are unknown.Emperor Maximilian I and King Vladislaus himself can be supposed as the commissioner.In any case, it seems clear that the picture is a political allegory, which is related to the question of succession to the Hungarian throne and the future fate of the Kingdom of Hungary. 13In 1506, Maximilian and Vladislaus agreed on a reciprocal succession treaty between the Habsburgs and the Jagiellons.This treaty was confirmed by the First Congress of Vienna, held in 1515, attended by the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I and the Jagiellonian brothers, Vladislaus II, King of Hungary and King of Bohemia, and Sigismund I, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.It was then that the double wedding that sealed the agreement took place.Vladislaus's son, Louis, married the emperor's granddaughter, Archduchess Mary and in the name of his grandsons, Archduke Charles or Archduke Ferdinand the Emperor Maximilian married Vladislaus' daughter, Anne. 14he painting is in connection with the iconography of four historical persons: Vladislaus II, Louis, Anne and Saint Ladislaus.Due to the extensive destruction of the faces, the question of what models Strigel followed and how authentic the portraits themselves can be considered is unanswerable.Earlier it was suggested that Strigel borrowed the facial features of the young King Vladislaus and of the little Louis from the miniature that can be seen on the coat of arms of János Pethő Gersei, made in Buda and dated in 1507. 15However, a direct borrowing would presuppose Strigel's stay in Buda, which we do not know of and which is in fact very unlikely. 16However, the round head type of Louis is a remarkable feature and seems to be authentic.It appears in the same way on the Buda miniature as well as in Strigel's portrait of Louis made after 1515. 17As a mirrored image, the same representation of the young Louis can be seen in Strigel's group portrait representing the family of Emperor Maximilian I -obviously the two portraits are based on the same study. 18He can be seen with shorter hair but with a similarly round head in the anonymous picture from the collection of the Ambras castle, apparently based on the representations by Strigel. 19he depiction of Saint Ladislaus fits into the history of extensive portrait iconography of the saint.His depiction as an older man with long hair and a bearded face corresponds to the canon of representations of the saint, which started to dominate from the end of the 14th century, in contrast to the previously typical youthful, bare-faced type. 20The standard example of this energetic, masculine type is the Saint Ladislaus head reliquary in the Győr Cathedral.Strigel could not have known the herma kept in Nagyvárad (today: Oradea, Romania) at that time, but this is of no particular importance.Strigel's small-scale picture did not provide an opportunity to accurately reproduce the physiognomy of the figures, and it was possible to depict the general facial features on the basis of any media.Here, we do not necessarily have to think of a pictorial source, the appropriate character type could be described in a few words.
Zsuzsa Urbach suggested that the portrait-like representation of Saint Ladislaus can be interpreted as an identification portrait.She thought she recognised Maximilan's features in the face of Saint Ladislaus, so she considered the emperor as the commissioner of the picture. 21Her proposal, which she considered only as a hypothesis, turned into a certainty in her later publications. 22However, the physiognomic similarities she described are not very convincing.Maximilian's depictions always show the emperor beardless, Strigel himself portrayed him in this way in other works. 23 Urbach 1994, Note 3. 17 Bernhard Strigel: King Louis II of Hungary as Child, tempera and oil on limewood panel, 29 cm × 22.2 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie inv.827.18 Bernhard Strigel: The Family of Emperor Maximilian I, tempera and oil on limewood panel, 72.8 cm × 60.4 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie inv.832.19 South German or Austrian Master, ca.1515-1520: King Louis II of Hungary as Child, tempera and oil on panel, 43 cm × 39 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie inv.4453.20 Marosi 1987, 239-240., Marosi 1995, 74-75.21 Urbach 1994 and Cat.Japan 1994, Cat.45.  22 Cat.Vienna 2003, Cat.II.14

S T U D I E S Miklós Gálos -Mátyás Darvas
Urbach's suggestion that we should see an identification portrait in Saint Ladislaus, although he did not mention Urbach's name, was also accepted by Jiří Fajt. 24However, Fajt saw the actual appearance of Vladislaus himself in Saint Ladislaus and accordingly, believed that the picture was created in 1515, when Strigel had the opportunity to personally contact the king.The depiction of Vladislaus in Prague in the fresco of the Saint Wenceslas Chapel in Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague (1508) corresponds to Strigel's Saint Ladislaus in its general characteristics, however, the conclusions drawn from the small and heavily damaged face, which gives little opportunity for individual characterization, remain highly hypothetical.
The key to the person of the commissioner, but also to the interpretation of the whole depiction, could be rendered by the inscription on the scroll, which, however, is worn to the point of illegibility. 25Hopes that the IR photographs taken during the 1982 restoration could help also vanished. 26The only fairly legible expression in the text, effecta, allowed us to conclude that the text is in Latin and written with minuscules.
Briefly summarizing what is given: the opposite side of the quadruple-folded scroll shows a mostly illegible inscription; at first sight only a few distinct, scattered characters give a relatively certain impression that we can see some text at all.
Reviewing the whole inscription field, we can see three lines of text, probably ca.130-150 characters long.The two sides of the scroll present a somehow conspicuously different view; this dichotomy also affects the legibility of text.
Unfortunately, the left side of the scroll is even more damaged than the right one; here the inscription's letters are expressly blurred, as though it had been exposed to some resolutive agent -perhaps during previous restoration processes. 27The surface also appears to be more even in this area, so that only some ascenders of letters remained distinguishable, while on the right area the deeper layer preserved the inscription in a considerably better condition; here the aforementioned word effecta and several other letters can be read.On the other hand, the varnish is rather cracked, causing disrupting concurrences in both the vertical and horizontal letter elements, especially tending towards the right edge of the scroll, where the inscription utterly vanishes.
For these reasons, it was difficult to take usable photographs of the scroll, so during the examination we mostly relied on the traditional method of using a strong magnifier, often changing the inspection angle and distance to eliminate distracting refractions.András Fáy in 2016 show the same result.27 Based on the photographs taken before the only documented restoration of the painting in 1982, the inscription was not damaged then.However, an overcleaning of the painted surface could have happened during previous undocumented restorations.

S T U D I E S Miklós Gálos -Mátyás Darvas
It is apparent at first glance why this inscription has hitherto remained neglected: there is obviously little hope of providing a well-founded reading -unless the text was a biblical or other quote, which could be completed by filling in the gaps.This, however, is rather unlikely in our opinion: the genre and positioning of the scroll suggest that its text is about the presented scene of the royal family with Saint Ladislaus, the Virgin and the Child.And it is precisely this context, accompanied by the mysterious eeriness of the damaged faces that makes the inscription worthy of examination.Our examination resulted in the following transcription: This reading, though far from satisfactory, confirms the presumption of a unique inscription, expressly written for this painting: even these few (and certainly questionable) legible syllables suggest a votive inscription, 30 obviously about the scene depicted above.
In his monograph, Otto gives images of 170 Strigel paintings, 31 74 of which have inscriptions, 29 of which are on the same type or similar scroll 32 as the image under examination.Thus, it is common for the artist to illustrate and explain a painted theme in this way.
Examining the typography used on these scrolls unfortunately provides little more certainty: we can observe capital, antique and humanistic fonts, both in Latin and German, but certainly written by several hands.The identification of Strigel's handwriting on a sample of this size and type therefore seems impossible.
According to the testimony of the IR photographs, there is no other, older version under the inscription.Theoretically, therefore, we can consider the following possibilities: the inscription is original and is in Strigel's handwriting; the inscription is contemporary, but written by a different hand; the inscription is much later.
As we have seen, we cannot expect a definite answer about the first option; the second is the most likely.The typography argues against the third option: an early humanist type-

S T U D I E S Miklós Gálos -Mátyás Darvas
face that corresponds to the age of the creation of the painting. 33It should be mentioned, however, that in Strigel's other pictures we cannot observe these characteristic slightly right-leaning, distinctly rounded letters.
Of course, our partial reading does not allow us to draw far-reaching conclusions.At the same time, it seems to confirm certain hypotheses previously raised about the painting.Based on the offering scene in Strigel's picture, Ernő Marosi classified the picture as one of the testimonials from around 1500 in which Mary appears as Patrona Hungariae, i.e. the patron saint of Hungary. 34Clear evidence of the Patrona Hungariae cult of the times of Matthias and Vladis laus II are the gold forints of Matthias after 1467 and of Vladislaus II, with the enthroned Virgin and Child on the obverse and Saint Ladislaus on the reverse.The expression regina effecta of the scroll seen on the axe of Saint Ladislaus suggests that Strigel's image is indeed a work of outstanding importance in the history of the late medieval cult of Patrona Hungariae.
Perhaps the most important result of our reading is that the name of Vladislaus is clearly mentioned on the scroll.This previously unknown detail speaks for the authenticity of the inscription.The votive nature of the inscription makes it likely that the picture was commissioned personally by Vladislaus II. 35He had the opportunity to order it in 1515, during his stay in Vienna.There is good reason to assume that the mediator between the artist and the king was Johannes Cuspinianus (Schweinfurt, 1473 -Vienna, 1529), humanist and councillor of Maximilian I, instead of Emperor Maximilian. 36Cuspinianus was sent for numerous diplomatic missions to Hungary for the preparation of the Congress of Vienna and thus knew the king well, as well as Bernard Strigel, who painted the portrait of his family.33 Or it could even be somewhat earlier if it was not completely impossible.34 Marosi 1995, 82-85.35 There are no traces of Emperor Maximilian's name and titles in those parts of the inscription that are to some extent legible, and it is also difficult to imagine them in the illegible parts.36 See Cat.Utrecht-s-Hertogenbosch 1993, Cat.24 (Jacqueline Kerkhoff).37 Bernhard Strigel: Portrait of Johannes Cuspinian, with his Second Wife Agnes, and his Sons from his First Marriage Sebastian Felix and Nicolaus Christostomus, 1520, tempera and oil on limewood panel, 71 x 62 cm, private collection.Otto 1964, 74-75., 104-105., No. 77.; Cat.Vienna 2003, Cat.II.20 (Karl Schütz).