Festett oklevelek és kódexek a késő középkori Magyarországon a művészettörténész dilemmái

In 1523 the papal legate Tommaso de Vio corroborated the statutes of the Pest Confraternity of the Virgin. The large booklet-shape diploma is representatively executed: the first page carries floral ornamentation in addition to the text. The decoration and the titulus starting the textual part, however, are archaizing, in line with the practice of the papal chancellary, instead of adopting the then widely popular modern all’antica decoration. The style of the embellishment of a diploma depended on the type of the diploma. Hungarian art historiography has long been resorting to letters patent of nobility in its efforts to date and define the place of origin of the manuscripts from the time of King Matthias and the Jagiello age. That was how the manuscripts of provost of Székesfehérvár Domokos Kálmáncsehi – including the activity of the master of the Breviary Francesco Castello (OSZK, Cod. Lat. 446) – could be located to Buda, and three ornamental manuscripts with music (OSZK, A24; Bratislava, Archív mesta, EC Lad. 6; Zagreb, MR 2) could be proven to have ties to Buda in the early 16th century. The Bakócz Gradual (Esztergom, MS I. 1a.), the Erdődy Missal (Zagreb, RK 354) and the Gradual of Máté Tolnai (Pannonhalma, Caps LIV. F f.) as well as the overwhelming majority of letters patent issued in Buda between 1514 and 1525 were illumined by the so-called Bakócz monogrammist. The letters granting nobility and armorial bearings in the Jagiello age are not merely props for art history but also constitute a separate diplomatic genre.