Enjoying Art From The Past, While Learning About Paulines

Today I'd like to show you some old artifacts from a very distant century and also some cool ways to attract visitors to a museum. Learning about the past is a good way to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again and what better way to learn, then to see it with your own eyes. Attracting visitors to museums is not an easy task as in the era of digitization you may find a lot of information online, but it is still possible as watching something in a virtual space, compared to seeing it with your own eyes is not the same thing.

There's an ongoing exhibition about the Paulines order in Targu Mures, that was brought from Budapest, Hungary, at the beginning of this month. For me it was an eye opener and a history lesson as I knew nothing about them, even though I've heard about the order. You can read the first part of my journey here.

This is a copy of the original document, issued by King Louis I. granting special privilege to the Paulines.

Louis I, also Louis the Great (Hungarian: Nagy Lajos; Croatian: Ludovik Veliki; Slovak: Ľudovít Veľký) or Louis the Hungarian (Polish: Ludwik Węgierski; 5 March 1326 – 10 September 1382), was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 and King of Poland from 1370. source

This document, even though it has no date, it must have been issued sometime before 1382, which makes it more than 640 years old. I tried to figure out in what language is written, but couldn't. I suppose it's Latin as that was the most commonly used language in the middle ages and especially for official business. In any case, the handwriting is amazing. I wish people could write like that today, but again, in the era of digitization, no one writes by hand anymore.

This is another interesting document, signed by Pope Martin V. that forbids the Paulines to transfer to another order without permission. Life was not easy for the order, basically life was not easy for any of the existing orders and religions as every major decision had to be approved by the Pope and every decision issued by the Pope had to be respected.

This document is absolutely amazing. Two things to note here. One is the initial letter, which back in those days was a real masterpiece. You see books that have actual drawings instead of the first letter on each page. The other thing to notice is the seal at the bottom of the document. If you're not familiar with medieval history of Europe, documents in those days were sent by couriers, which was usually one man on a horse. That person had the mission to ride as fast as possible to the destination, but if the road was too long, he had to change horses and spend the night at an inn. Many times these couriers were watched, followed and killed to capture the document, if it was of utmost importance. Sometimes the document was switched with a fake one, the seal was forged and so on. Those were the medieval hackers.

This document is more readable and it is definitely written in Latin. Please note the first row. Pope Martin V grants indulgence for the Paulines in Budaszentlőrinc, which is in Hungary.

source

These are the ruins of the Paulines monastery in Budaszentlőrinc.

A collection of old pieces. Fragments of old stained-glass window, medieval imbrex tiles, fragments of stove tile from the monastery, from the 15th century, Majolica bowl, medieval floor tiles, all from monasteries in Hungary.

This is the work of the nuns. It is known that nuns are working to sustain themselves and the monastery they are living in.

This was the room where there were displayed a lot of interesting and valuable objects, all belonging to the Paulines' past.

A keystone decorated with Agnus Dei, the lamb of God,dated to the medieval period from the Pauline monastery in Tüskevár (Hungary).

This is a copper engraving from 1836, the icon of the virgin Mary.

Copper engraving of the Pietá statue.

Rib fragment with the representation of a Prophet from the Holy Spirit monastery in Miskolc.

Each religion is different. Sometimes there are similarities between two religions, other times there's none. I'm a reformed christian, so these liturgical supplies that served for the mass are known to me as I've seen them in movies and maybe in some of the churches (although they don't leave these out for the public as nowadays you can trust no one) but honestly don't know much about them.

Standing in front of this beauty, I was looking at the wonderful details. Imagine artists those days did not have the tools and the techniques we have today and even so, they left us some amazing artworks.

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