Europa Jagellonica, 1386–1572
Art and culture in the era of the Jagiellonian dynasty
MúzeumCafé 30.
In Kutná Hora, a small town in the Czech Republic, a major exhibition has opened which deserves the attention of Hungarian experts and ordinary visitors alike. On the road leading to the Church of St. Barbara there stands the huge Baroque building of the former Jesuit school, which today houses the Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region (Galerie Středočeského kraje, GASK). This is the venue of the Jagiellonian exhibition. The display represents the first summary of a research project which has been underway for more than ten years. It will be followed by another exhibition, The Jagiel-lonians – European Rulers Between the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas, in Warsaw’s Royal Castle and the National Museum from October this year to January 2013. Finally, an exhibition in Potsdam will end the series. The scientific project began in 1997 and has been undertaken by the Research Centre for the History and Culture of East Central Europe (GWZO) at Leipzig University. At the beginning professor Robert Suckale of Berlin’s Technische Universität, an outstanding art historian specialising in the art of central Europe, was in charge of the project. Then, due to his illness, Czech art historian Jiři Fajt took over. It was clearly not easy to find large venues for the exhibitions crowning the research project. The present one occupies the entire main wing. The town was chosen because it was here that in 1471 the landed estates elected the Jagiellonian Vladislav II as the first king of Bohemia. Some five hundred works of art on loan from about one hundred (!) European and North American public, private and ecclesiastical collections showcase the period between 1386 and 1572 when the Jagiellonian dynasty occupied the thrones of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary.