Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (44.2011)

de Voragine was the original author, or whether he
simply compiled the legendsd' The correct answer
can obviously be found somewhere in the middle:
the Dominican monk certainly did not strive for
originality, but his compilation reveals his individual
tastes and his aim of producing a handbook suited
to the purpose (in other words useful in preparing
sermons). Already on this level we can observe
some process of intégration. In the next step, the
translation of the legends into the visual idiom in the
FT/T/twAz// MyyřMÁ the force of this unity
prevailed to an even greater degree amidst the new
systém of sélection and reediting. One visible sign
of this process (and in part the reason for it) is the
monotony of the image types used in the codex.
The recurring use of images of identical composi-
tion was clearly not a choice. The legends needed to
be put into a visual language, and a good portion of
the selected scenes had no iconographie tradition,
or at least not one that was accessible. No doubt,
the painters of the FF/T/ty/A?// used
prototypes too, although we should not imagine these
as iconographie handbooks of individual saints, but
rather as collections of certain motifs, compositional
schemes, and characteristic details. Thus in creating
the cvcles, the executioners of the codex were not
so much illustrating the texts, but selecting from
among available image types and visual éléments. As
a conséquence, the images sometimes contradict the
text of the (HAA? lAy^T In the cycle of Andrew, the
saint is not led from the prison by his feilow aposde
but by an angel, probably a resuit of the convention
according to which miraculous libération from prison
is generally the work of angels [Fig. 5] A Francis of
Assisi rescues the man with a sword through his
throat by making the appropriate blessing gesture
found in scenes of healing, with the injured kneel-

One extreme is represented by J. B. M. Roze (1900) who
believed the bishop of Genoa was just a simple copier. In
sharp contrast is the view of R. Benz who demonstrated that
de Voragine created a unihed style in the (c/A/? Eťgř/V from
hundreds of different styles found in the sources (1917).
For a good summary of the debate with new arguments, see
FLEITH, B.: 32%Ař% ?w* Ar
HgwAzVHra?. Bruxelles 1991, pp. 17-24; cf. RHEIN, R.: DF
Ar A KrxgAř. DF PPFg/AF
A "HFÆAAH/A "Dor/nAA. Köln —Weimar— Wien 1995, pp.
21-43.


yV<% P<?AF?F (/FA Ry)ro.' í HLdRDY 7R77 (Ař A 74).

ing before him and the saint escorted by his fellow
monks. These modfs all contradict the text of the
(A/bÁ? Fgy<?//FA When the bees Ry into the mouth of
the infant Ambrose, a female hgure not found in the
legend appears: this is clearly a legacy of birth scene
image typesA In the story of Alexis, the statue of
Virgin Mary tells the church watchman to lead the
samt into the church, whiie in the pteture this is re-
formulatedinto a vision of the Holý Virgin [Fig. 6]v
24 Vat. Lat. 8541, fol. 16v; LEVÁRDY 1973 (see m note 14),
ňg. 36.
25 Vat. Lat. 8541, fol. 91r; LEVÁRDY 1973 (see in note 14), hg.
149.
25 Vat. Lat. 8541, fol. 74v; LEVÁRDY 1973 (see in note 14),
hg. 118.
22 Hermitage, 16930; LEVÁRDY 1973 (see in note 14), hg.
158.

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