Časopis ARS 35 (2002) 1-3

Barbara BALÁŽOVÁ

Stĺp Najsvätejšej Trojice v Kremnici (1765 – 1772). Jeden z posledných morových stĺpov v bývalých habsburských krajinách
[The Plague Column of the Holy Trinity in Kremnica (1765 – 1772). One of the Last Plague Columns in the Former Habsburg Empire]

(Resumé)

The Baroque Plague Column of the Holy Trinity in Kremnica – the focus of the main square in Kremnica – was the subject of many studies of Slovak historians of art during the whole 20th Century. Despite this it is still the most relevant and also the most important small book of Jozsef Hlatky from 1898 – A kormoczbanyai Szt.-Haromszag-oszlop - which became at the beginning also the basic source for my study and research.

The basic archival material is situated in the Town's Archive in Kremnica and also in the Central Mining Archive in Banska Stiavnica. In the first one now exists a huge archival material which very deeply documents all history of the designing, process of creation, and every connected problem during the building of the Plague Column in Kremnica in the period 1765 - 1772. The Plague Column is the work of two main sculptors and their workshops – a sculptor from Kremnica Dionysius Staneti and his workshop, and a sculptor from the Austrian town Bruck an der Leitha - Martin Vogerle and his workshop, especially Teodor Mayer whom the previously published literature registered as Anton Mayer. The technical question of the column's building was entrusted to the building constructor and master - Ignatius Peter Götz. In the archival material from the Central Mining Archive in Banska Stiavnica is known the design of the Plague Column from Kremnica which was created by the town's painter Stephan Voltsey in 1765-1766 and not by Dionysius Staneti or Martin Vogerle as until the present time supposed every historian of art in Slovakia.

The first restoration of the Plague Column in Kremnica started not so long after its completion in 1772. At the beginning of the 19th Century the column was covered by a layer of hot wax and this process very deeply destroyed a structure of the used stones. In the second half of the 19th Century it was absolutely necessary to try to repair the Plague Column and this work was managed by two Hungarian restaurateurs. The next restorations followed very quickly – in 1905, 1920 - 1921, 1953 - 1959, and the last one, which was began in the 8th decade of the 20th Century, and is not yet finished. On the basis of the relating archival materials and restoration's analyses it is now possible to identify every sculpture and relief on the Plague Column of the Holy Trinity in Kremnica and also to ascribe them to Dionysius Staneti or to Martin Vogerle. But in the present we have a problem of how to interpret now the result of so many restorations because only a few parts of the column exist in the original condition. During the last restoration all sculptures were substituted by copies from the artificial stone and only the original sculptures from the 18th Century (St. Clement, St. Charles Boromeus, St. Xavier, St. Rosalie, St. Sebastian and two putts carrying the Jesus Heart) will be presented in the exposition of the Museum of Coins and Medals in Kremnica.

The basic prototype for the Plague Column of the Holy Trinity in Kremnica, like every plague column of the Holy Trinity dressed in clouds in the former Habsburg Empire, is the Plague Column of the Holy Trinity – Pestsäule am Graben – in Vienna, a very famous work of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Ludovico Ottavio Burnacini and Paul Strudel from the years 1680 - 1694. This commemorative column, devoted to the big plague epidemic between 1678 - 1681, is described and analysed in so many articles and studies, but it is necessary to make a note about a very interesting study from Christine Boeckl: Vienna's Pestsäule: The Analysis of a seicento plague monuments, which is a very important movement in the interpretation of traditional plague iconography against the previous Austrian art historical view. In her study she very deeply analysed and introduced a program of the column's iconography and his individual formal influences.

Finally, Vienna's Plague Column of the Holy Trinity itself became an example for every plague column dressed in clouds in the former Habsburg Empire during the 17th and especially 18th Century. Little by little the Viennese prototype absorbed and developed its primary structure by another iconographic and formal components and variations – a presentation of the Immaculate, St. Rosalie laying in the small grotto in the lower part of columns, an emplacement of the local, plague, or in the Baroque art prefer anti-reformation Saints, sometimes we can observe a combination of the Holy Trinity's iconography with the iconography of the Holy Virgin or Jesus Christ.

At this point it is very necessary to remark that the building of plague columns didn't follow directly after the plague epidemic. Their construction had a specific purpose and specific function as a memorial appendix to a tragic time and in this meaning columns worked as a "post scriptum". On the other side, columns operated as commemorative places in other negative cases, which were in the life of the Baroque people an illness, war, hunger and these demands were formulated as an inscription on the body of plague columns. Of course, they became also a question of the social prestige of a town's community and town's inhabitants.

Probably it could also be the reason why the town's magistracy of Kremnica decided to replace the Plague Column in the main square from 1710 - a memorial for a plague epidemic of the same year. A very important function had the aspiration of the magistracy to have a fashionable trend of the temporary Baroque art in the former Habsburg Empire, also important was the urban conception of the main square after the renovation the Parish Church of Blessed Virgin from the years 1755 - 1767, and finally, of course, to be better than Banska Stiavnica because for Kremnica this town represented the norm in every cases.

Despite the Plague Column in Kremnica being created one Century later than its prototype - Vienna's Pestsäule, in archival material it still figured as its model and paradigm, but its final structure was very different and retracted. The original design, which offered Dionysius Staneti to the discussion and final sanction to the town's magistracy in 1765, introduced a pyramidal composition with, in the top, placed the Holy Trinity carried by an angel. On the body of the column was introduced Immaculate, then the three town's and mining patrons St. Catharine, St. Clement, St. Barbara, a ternary of anti-reformation saints St. Joseph, St. Anton de Padua, St. Xavier and the specific but also classic plague saints St. Charles Boromeus, St. Sebastian, St. Rochus and in the small grotto lay St. Rosalie. Against the original design the iconographic program of reliefs definitely changed and there were three reliefs - Plague, War and Hunger and the cycle with the Holy Virgin thematic - the Annunciation, Marriage of the Virgin, Visitation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Circumcision of Christ and Assumption. Despite there being in the separated parts of the column some iconographic relations and the simple program – ternaries of Saints and also the Holy Virgin iconography and plague iconography – the Plague Column of the Holy Trinity missed in its contents such a large and integrated iconographic program like we know from Vienna and which was very deeply interpreted by Christine Boeckl in her study. In spite of the fact that during the forewent rebuilding of the former Parish Church in Kremnica was created the special "concetto" explaining the iconographic program of frescoes, in the case of the Plague Column we haven't found in the archival material anything similar yet. As if the Plague Column of the Holy Trinity in Kremnica was only the reduced citation of its model without any apocalypse, desperation, uselessness or submission, on the other side also joyfulness and thanksgiving for the end of the plague epidemic readable on Vienna's Pestsäule.

The iconographic program of the Plague Column in Kremnica is so simple and locally adapted that if we don't recognise its forerunner in Vienna, we should find very difficult its every historical, iconographic and formal relations and connections. This is probably the most important moment in the enlistment of the Plague Column in Kremnica into the context of the plague columns in the former Habsburg Empire. More than as a commemorative and votive monument of the plague epidemic was for the town's magistracy important the self- representation and self-celebration as so much that the Royal Chamber Office had to admonish the town's magistracy of Kremnica and advised to present the high religiousness by building the town's orphanage.

Against all these conclusions thanks to the aspiration of the town's magistracy in Kremnica in the highest self-represent we are better off for having one of the most beautiful external Baroque monuments, despite it is missing so much from its original meaning and sense from the fundamental function of its model Vienna's Pestsäule.

Appendix: Inspirations and models for the Plague Column of the Holy Trinity in Banska Stiavnica

During my interest in the models, patterns and resources for the Plague Column in Kremnica I encountered also other types of plague columns of the Holy Trinity in the former Habsburg Empire which is in Slovakia presented by the Plague Column of the Holy Trinity in Banska Stiavnica (1755 - 1763). So as memorised by some historians of art the inspiration for this work represented the Josephsäule am Hohen Markt in Vienna – the work of Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach and Antonio Corradini from 1729 - 1732 and also its other interpretation in Krems from 1736 – the work of Joseph Mathias Götz, a member of the famous Bavarian family of sculptors Götz-Degler from Bamberg.

In the archival material is, as an author of the design and model of the Plague Column in Banska Stiavnica (now in the courtesy of the Slovak Mining Museum in Banska Stiavnica) mentioned the building master George Götz from Kremnica. Actually, the man with this name had not been living during the 18th Century in Kremnica, there was just known the building constructor and Master Ignatius Peter Götz who was mentioned before in the connection with the rebuilding of the former Parish Church in Kremnica and also the Plague Column of the Holy Trinity in Kremnica. On the basis of my research in the birth, marriage and death-registers in Slovakia we know, that he was a native Bavarian from the town Bruchsall. There his father Johann Valentin Götz became the town's sculptor, and finally his uncle was Joseph Mathias Götz – the famous sculptor in the surroundings of the Austrian town Passau. Thus Ignatius Peter Götz belonged to the third generation of the Bavarian family of sculptors Götz-Degler. His name we found the first time in Slovakia in the archival material connected with the rebuilding the Piarist Church in Prievidza in 1741, as also the name of the sculptor Dionysius Staneti. Ignatius Peter Götz got married in Kremnica in 1758 and he lived there till his death in 1784.

Finally, on the basis of the relations inside the Bavarian family Götz-Degler we discovered the direct line of citations and variations of the fashion trends in the Baroque sculpture of the 18th Century in the former Habsburg Empire.