Page - 365 - in Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg - Netzwerker der Kunstwelt

Across the Leitha 365 ship, and it may serve to sketch out the context in which Eitelberger became acquainted with Henszlmann. As such, it helps identify the formative influences that shaped his attitudes. Eitelberger, Henszlmann and the Böhm Circle Košice is now in eastern Slovakia, but during the nineteenth century it was the city of Kassa in Upper Hungary. The largest city in the region, it also has an illustrious histor- ical heritage ; a royal free town of the Hungarian kingdom from the fourteenth century onwards, it is also the location of Slovakia’s largest Gothic church, the Cathedral of St.  Elisabeth, which dates back to the late 1300s (fig.  1). It was undoubtedly on account of its rich historical heritage that the city was chosen as the site of a regional museum, which was founded in 1872, initially as the Museum of Upper Hungary (Felsőmagyaro- szági Múzeum) (fig.  2). The correspondence with Eitelberger is now in its archives be- cause Henszlmann (fig.  3), an important motivating force behind the museum’s foun- dation, bequeathed it his collection of artworks, books and papers.5 Now little known outside of Hungary, Henszlmann was an important figure in Hungarian intellectual life. A native of Košice  – he was supposed to have grown up in the shadow of the ca- thedral  – he was one of the first art historians in Hungary. He was appointed professor of Art History at the University of Pest in 1872 and played a major role in monument conservation and protection in Hungary as well as being a pioneer of medieval archi- tectural history. He was also author of what is now agreed to have been one of the first works of art historical writing in Hungarian : The Churches of the City of Kassa in the Old German Style, published in 1846.6 He was, in many respects, a Hungarian counterpart to Eitelberger.7 Approximately the same age, they both had a formative role in the rise of art his- tory in the two halves of the Monarchy. Henszlmann had other things in common with the Austrian, too. For he was a political Liberal, like Eitelberger, and was drawn to the revolutionary events of 1848. Indeed, he was much more politically active than Eitel- 5 For a brief outline of the museum and Henszlmann’s involvement in it see U. Ambrušsová, Sen o múzeu : príbeh Imricha Henszlmanna [The dream of a museum : the story of Imre Henszlmann], Košice 2013. 6 I. Henszlmann, Kassa városának ó-német stylű templomairól, Pest 1846. See, too, K. Weiss, Der Elisabeth Dom zu Kaschau in Ungarn, in : Mittheilungen der Central-Commission zur Erforschung und Erhaltung der Baudenkmale, 2, 1857, pp.  236–245 and pp.  275–278. 7 On Henszlmann’s contribution to the formation of art history in Hungary see E. Marosi (ed.), Die Ungarische Kunstgeschichte und die Wiener Schule, 1846–1930, Vienna 1983.