Art and politics

Portraits of two princess from the Arpadović dynasty

Nikola, Piperski

Kultura

152

183

197

0023-5164

10.5937/kultura1652183P

http://scindeks.ceon.rs/article.aspx?query=ISSID%26and%2613093&page=0&so...

2016-2021/06/21/08:07:03

When the Hungarian Arpad dynasty died out, princesses Mary and Katelina Arpad were the two key figures in medieval Game of Thrones in Hungary. In the politics of the Middle Ages, and today, the media war has played a very important role. In order to manipulate, visual message had, at least equal, if not greater impact than the written or spoken word. The royal portraits are key clues for the study of media wars of the Middle Ages. In addition to Irina Piroska, only two princesses of the first Hungarian royal family Arpad whose portraits are preserved, are Princess Katelina and Mary. Portrait of Princess Mary is preserved in the Anjou Bible from Naples, while the portrait of Princess Katelina in the narthex of the church of St. Achilles in Arilje. The main function of the portrait was to provide an ideal picture of the ruler or his wife. For the ruler, a good reputation played an important role since the earliest times, through the Middle Ages, and so it has remained to this day. Today, the image of the ideal ruler is created by a whole team of people, but a similar situation was also in the Middle Ages. With a picture of the ideal ruler necessarily goes the picture of the ideal wife, whose name and reputation should not be doubted. Something like a picture of Jackie Kennedy and Jovanka Broz in the twentieth century. It is clear that the role of women in the Middle Ages in culture and politics was much more limited compared to men, both in Western Europe and in Byzantium. However the role of women cannot be neglected in a society in which political influence was based on power and reputation of the great noble families, which made their political connections by marriage.