Sigismundus (original) (raw)

Exhibition
Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum,
18 March—18 June 2006
Luxembourg, Musée national d’Histoire et d’Art,
13 July—15 October 2006

On 9 December 1437:
‘Calling upon his last reserve of energy to make the journey home, Sigismund, King of Hungary and Holy Roman Emperor, while passing through a foreign land, in the town of Znaim, met with a power far greater than he, Death… For 500 years the question has been asked, who was this luminous figure glimmering across the darkness of the distant past? Was he a tyrant as portrayed in the folk imagination and the ballads that grew out of it? Was he a squanderer, as others have said, or a crowned ruler who was driven across Europe by a consuming unease, to find peace only in the grave? He inherited his handsome appearance and superior strength from his mother and his wisdom and love of the arts from his father, Emperor Charles IV, who resided in Prague. In his family were a series of art lovers and passionate book collectors. In the science of governing, it was perhaps the example of his father-in-law, King Louis the Great of Hungary, that may have proved the most inspirational. At two universal church councils he rose to the occasion, displaying astonishing diplomatic skill as the world’s highest-ranking layman. Life, which proved more eventful for him than for most others, did much to shape him, but it was the times that gave him the most. This was an era that witnessed the building of Brunelleschi’s dome, the wars waged by Pippo Spano, the paintings of Masacio and Van Eyck, the dignity of the Burgundian princes and the smile of Pisanello bowing over a medal. These were also the times—if it is possible to build on these superlatives—of Konrad Witz, his brush in motion somewhere on the shores of the Bodensee, and Alain Chartier, the court poet of the French king, stirred up in opposition to the Turks during his stay in Buda, and also Donatello, struggling with the stone in Florence. He, who was anchored to the ground by a thousand roots, bore resemblance to his loved ones, and was, although on another level, as grand as Donatello, as passionate as Chartier, as cruel as Pippo Spano and as distinguished as John the Fearless, Prince of Burgundy.’

István Genthon