Die Rekonstruktion einer monumentalen Darstellung der Heiligen Drei Könige aus dem gotischen Skulpturenfund des Budaer Königspalastes .......... 341

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE MONUMENTAL REPRESENTATION OF THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI FROM THE GOTHIC SCULPTURE ENSEMBLE FROM THE BUDA CASTLE

In 1974, a large group of high-quality Gothic sculptures was discovered in Hungary during excavations at the Royal Palace in Buda. The sculptures were commissioned by King Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387–1437) to decorate the palace, which he had transformed into his central residence in the 1410s and 1420s. The sculptures depict partly saints and partly secular figures, and a smaller, heavily fragmented group of them can be reconstructed as a scene of the Adoration of the Magi. The presence of this theme in Sigismund’s palace was hardly accidental. The special reverence of late medieval rulers for the Magi is well known, which was also manifested in the fact that they identified themselves in various ways with the kings worshipping Jesus. A representative form of this was when rulers were depicted in the role of one of the Magi in Epiphany scenes. There are also several references to the representation of Sigismund in the Buda sculpture group, and additionally, the Hungarian king is the only one among the late medieval rulers, who is attested by contemporary written sources to have been depicted as one of the Magi in a painted example of the scene.