Evropae nationes: Allegories Painted in a House in Brașov in the Early Seventeenth Century
Evropae nationes: Allegories Painted in a House in Brașov in the Early Seventeenth Century

Summary/Abstract: The present study analyses the premodern wall paintings discovered and restored in the principal room of the house situated at no. 16 Town Hall Square in Braºov, in the middle of the former Short Row, which are datable to the early decades of the seventeenth century. Two fragmentary figurative panels with mythological figures are preserved on the west wall, and vegetal decoration on the vaults, with flowers painted perpendicularly to the edges, unlike the other regular schemes of the known “Transylvanian Floral Renaissance” murals of the period. The pairs of mythological deities in the panels are derived from the drawings of Hans von Aachen, engraved by Jan and Raphael Sadeler, and represent allegories of the “European Nations” (c. 1594). Hermes and Athena (who usually make up the composite alchemical motif Hermathena in Mannerist art), have here a different meaning and symbolize France, while Juno and Mars represent Spain. The other two motifs of Hans von Aachen’s series, Italy and Germany, may have been shown on the opposite eastern wall, but they were probably destroyed by the later works which remodeled the house. This ensemble comissioned by the rich members of the Transylvanian Saxon urban elite who owned the house is the only example of murals inspired by Hans van Aachen’s qvatvor evropaenationes (c. 1594) known today in monumental European art.

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