A visegrádi ferences templom mesterei
The interesting professional evenings of the Researchers of Old Buildings will continue in 2025.
This year's first lecture:
Gergely Búzás
The masters of the Franciscan Church of Visegrád
In 1425, King Sigismund founded the Observant Franciscan monastery on the site of the Anjou-era St George's Chapel, next to the Visegrád Royal Palace. The Franciscan monastery, rebuilt between 1473 and 1513, was destroyed during the Turkish wars in the 16th and 17th centuries. Some parts of the cloister and the church of the monastery were excavated in the 1980s and the two cloister courtyards were excavated between 1990 and 2010.
The excavations have revealed the remains of a forge and a stonecutter's forge in the monastery's Matthias-period farmyard, which were used in the construction of the monastery and the palace during the Matthias period. This supported the earlier assumption that the Late Gothic stonecutter who worked on the construction of the monastery and palace in the Matevian period was a Franciscan architect, probably Brother John, who was sent by Matthias from Visegrád to Cluj-Napoca in 1490 to supervise the construction of the Franciscan monastery there.
Schedule
The excavation of the monastery church took place only in 2024. During the work, more than a hundred stone carvings from the late Gothic vault of the church were found, allowing the reconstruction of the simple cross vault of the nave and the square ribbed vault of the nave chancel. The 3D survey of the stone carvings was carried out by a company called "Mensor 3D" under the supervision of András Fehér. The reconstruction of the vault was done by Balázs Szőke.
Among other marks on the ribs of the vault, the stone carving of Anton Pilgram, who worked here in the 1490s as a young stone carver under the supervision of a master builder in Vienna, was found.
The Renaissance high altarpiece, whose marble sculptures were commissioned from Benedetto da Maiano in Florence by King Matthias II, was erected in the sanctuary of the church after the vault was completed. Several sculptural fragments of the altar were also unearthed during the excavations.
