MEMORIE, LOC ȘI RITUAL ÎN BISERICI ȘI CAPELE DIN TRANSILVANIA MEDIEVALĂ. CÂTEVA CAZURI SEMNIFICATIVE

This study, analysing the (relatively more generous) documentary sources related to the religious foundations of the Hunedoara /Hunyadi family in Transylvania, but also a few other cases, aims to support the idea that medieval religious foundations (altars, chapels, churches) have to be considered not only as artistically designed „objects” (the dominant reading in the history of Romanian and especially Transylvanian art so far) but also as places of the ritual and of the remembrance. In other words, it will be argued that these institutions should be „reconstructed” as places for the commemoration (memoria) of the founders and successive donors (who enjoyed the spiritual benefits), as places with a specific liturgy, and loca with their own decoration (consisting in murals, altarpieces, statues, coats of arms, tombstones, effigies or portraits of donors, etc). The decoration, as it will be emphasized here, often made transparent references to the patronage and liturgy of that specific church, chapel, or altar. The study, using both documentary and visual sources, questions traditional assumptions concerning the dedication of several such foundation, and it attempts to reconstruct their original setting, endowment and memorial content. It also asserts that multiple foundations contributed to spread the memory of the founder, and to „upgrade” his/ her fame from a local to a regional scale, and from a liturgical commemoration to a historical significance.