K ikonografii středověké vesnice : první poznatky z etnologické analýzy nástěnných maleb v Porta Aquila v jihotyrolském Tridentu

Abstract

In reconstructing developments in traditional folk culture, not only material artefacts but also icono-graphical evidence are of primary importance. Ethnology and ethnography in the Czech Republic treat iconographical materials with the close attention that is their due, as do other disciplines of history and art history. The publication "Homo Faber" (Prague, 1967) provides us with a complex resource on depictions of work-related subjects which were produced in the Czech Lands between the 11th and 17th centuries. More recent works concentrate for the most part on analysis of iconographical sources which are newly discovered or have been rendered accessible only recently. Many literary relics from the Czech Lands of the Middle Ages - whose depictions bring us closer to the realities of village life in Bohemia before the Hussites - are now kept abroad. (Mandeville's travel writings, for example, are housed in the British Museum in London.) There are many analytical studies which fbcus on iconographic materials from the modern age, not least on the subject of folk apparel. An interesting source of iconography, and one which has a connection with the Czech Lands, is the calendar in Porta Aquila, Trient, South Tyrol. These murals, which depict eleven months of the year, have their origin in the early 15th century. Their artist (most likely the master painter Wenceslas, whose patron was George of Liechtenstein, Bishop of Trient) uses symbols to show the individual months which have their basis in agricultural labour, such as the acts of ploughing, the sowing of cereals, haymaking, harvesting, vintage and the gathering of wood. The artist shows in some detail technical aspects of the work, how certain agricultural tools are used, the work attire of peasants (men and women); we also see village buildings of various kinds. Alongside these "folk" elements, the murals show aspects of the life of the "lord" in the form of members of higher social classes engaging in their social activities. By analysing the realia of everyday peasant life they depict, we are able to claim that the murals provide highly valuable evidence of agricultural life in the central Europe of the Middle Ages. In the case of some phenomena only (eg., the harnessing of livestock) do we consider closer links to the Czech Lands, where the painter of the Trient calendar was said to have had his origins. It will only be possible to reach more exact conclusions after further analysis has been performed.