DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41589#0061
Ist vän Feld
Budapest
Filippo Scolari’s Castle at Ozora
The castle of Ozora in south-west Hungary stands on a plateau of a low ridge of
hills in the valley of the River Sio, that carries the overflow waters of Lake Balaton into
the Danube. The quadrate block, enclosing a central court, was erected on an area of
app. 35 x35 ra. With its vast saddle-backed wings and rows of small windows it looked
— until quite recently — like any other late Baroque granary (Fig. 69). Although no
significant mediaeval details were to be seen on the building, with the exception perhaps
of the cellar, where mediaeval frameworks and vaults have throughout been apparent,
both art- and architectural historians have paid early attention to it as the family
residence of Filippo Scolari, a native of Florence and a great favourite of Sigismund of
Luxemburg, King of Hungary from 1387 to 1437, whom he served both as a talented
man of finance and a most successful commander on the battlefield1.
It js an old and still existent reaction of Hungarian art-historiography to make
direct connections between antyhing that is Italian in the 14th and 15th centuries and
the so-called ”proto-Renaissance”, the latter being, however, rather laxly defined.
Therefore, it has become almost a commonplace to refer to Scolari’s castle — the home
of an impoverished Italian nobleman who found his way into the ranks of the
Hungarian aristocracy — as an outstanding example of the ’’proto-Renaissance” trend.
In fact however, neither in Ozora nor in any other of the numerous buildings that are
associated with his patronage, was the Italian, or the Renaissance character possible to
trace either by the evidence of data or by way of the surviving artistic details. Likewise,
the participation of Masolino or Manetto Ammannatini in the works carried out at
Ozora should be considered a mere hypothesis lacking all evidence of facts2. An
outstanding figure in the research of fortifications in Central Europe, Dobroslava
Menclova, went so far as to suggest in 1958 that ”a thorough examination of the Ozora
castle might provide the key to the better understanding of the development of castles in
Hungary, of its connections with Italian architecture and other problems of the
Hungarian ”proto-Renaissance”3.
Urged by Menclova, the research was started, thanks to favourable circumstances in
1981. It had been decided that the building was to be turned into a museum and cultural
centre. This, otherwise fairly characteristic manifestation of the current attitude of
monument protection in Hungary, made it necessary and possible to carry out an
almost complete archaeological investigation. As we cannot speak of a universally
accepted terminology as regards the scientific investigations of buildings in Europe
I wish to stress that by archaeological investigation I mean the combined application of
two different, closely related methods, namely excavations and the investigation of
59
Budapest
Filippo Scolari’s Castle at Ozora
The castle of Ozora in south-west Hungary stands on a plateau of a low ridge of
hills in the valley of the River Sio, that carries the overflow waters of Lake Balaton into
the Danube. The quadrate block, enclosing a central court, was erected on an area of
app. 35 x35 ra. With its vast saddle-backed wings and rows of small windows it looked
— until quite recently — like any other late Baroque granary (Fig. 69). Although no
significant mediaeval details were to be seen on the building, with the exception perhaps
of the cellar, where mediaeval frameworks and vaults have throughout been apparent,
both art- and architectural historians have paid early attention to it as the family
residence of Filippo Scolari, a native of Florence and a great favourite of Sigismund of
Luxemburg, King of Hungary from 1387 to 1437, whom he served both as a talented
man of finance and a most successful commander on the battlefield1.
It js an old and still existent reaction of Hungarian art-historiography to make
direct connections between antyhing that is Italian in the 14th and 15th centuries and
the so-called ”proto-Renaissance”, the latter being, however, rather laxly defined.
Therefore, it has become almost a commonplace to refer to Scolari’s castle — the home
of an impoverished Italian nobleman who found his way into the ranks of the
Hungarian aristocracy — as an outstanding example of the ’’proto-Renaissance” trend.
In fact however, neither in Ozora nor in any other of the numerous buildings that are
associated with his patronage, was the Italian, or the Renaissance character possible to
trace either by the evidence of data or by way of the surviving artistic details. Likewise,
the participation of Masolino or Manetto Ammannatini in the works carried out at
Ozora should be considered a mere hypothesis lacking all evidence of facts2. An
outstanding figure in the research of fortifications in Central Europe, Dobroslava
Menclova, went so far as to suggest in 1958 that ”a thorough examination of the Ozora
castle might provide the key to the better understanding of the development of castles in
Hungary, of its connections with Italian architecture and other problems of the
Hungarian ”proto-Renaissance”3.
Urged by Menclova, the research was started, thanks to favourable circumstances in
1981. It had been decided that the building was to be turned into a museum and cultural
centre. This, otherwise fairly characteristic manifestation of the current attitude of
monument protection in Hungary, made it necessary and possible to carry out an
almost complete archaeological investigation. As we cannot speak of a universally
accepted terminology as regards the scientific investigations of buildings in Europe
I wish to stress that by archaeological investigation I mean the combined application of
two different, closely related methods, namely excavations and the investigation of
59