The Principality of Transylvania in the Descriptions of the Second Half of the 18th Century: On the “Country’s Redressing” by Count Leopold von Clary
The Principality of Transylvania in the Descriptions of the Second Half of the 18th Century: On the “Country’s Redressing” by Count Leopold von Clary

Summary/Abstract: Symbolising confessional tolerance, an engraving from 1782 entitled Die geistliche Seelen frey Tafel (kept at the Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, Budapest) displays the meeting between the Habsburg Emperor, Joseph II, and the representatives of the Christian confessions – Catholic, Orthodox, Reformed and Evangelical. The ideal of Christian harmony beyond the ritual differences, but also the message of submission to the imperial authority, is transmitted through the image’s descriptive texts. A little later, the same theme is found in a painting by an unknown author, dating from after 1790, entitled Szeretetnek eledele (“The Dinner of Love”, kept in a private collection), with the German texts translated into Hungarian. The linguistic difference is not the only one attesting the circulation of the German and Hungarian representations, but also the distinctive manner in which the clothing of the illustrated characters is rendered.

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