Numismatic Collection of the Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Humanities, Institute of Archaeological Sciences

Márton Gyöngyössy – Orsolya Mészáros – Csaba Tóth

The Numismatic Collection of the Eötvös Loránd University is the oldest public collection of Hungary. It had been selected and used for educational purposes, at present it contains about 20,000 coins. Regarding the number of coins it is also one of the country’s largest collections, outnumbered only by the Department of Coins and Medals of the Hungarian National Museum, the Banknote and Coin Collection of the Hungarian National Bank, and the collections of the Móra Ferenc Museum in Szeged and of the Hermann Ottó Museum in Miskolc.

The establishment of the collection can, in a sense, be regarded as the foundation of the Department of the Institute of Archaeological Sciences. It is one of the university’s oldest departments. The coin collection was established in 1753 by Lipót Fischer, a Jesuit priest, about a hundred years after the university’s foundation; this act can, in a sense, be regarded as the foundation of the department. The significance of the coin collection and the university education built around it, as well as of the department itself, is specifically mentioned in the Ratio Educationis of 1777. The edict highlighted the accession of the coin cabinet called Numophylacium and the education of archaeology specially.

The coin collection and the beginnings of the archaeological education

Following medieval antecedents, the origins of the university date back to the 17th century without any breaks. Cardinal Péter Pázmány, Primate of Hungary, founded the university by his deed issued on May 12, 1635, with a fund of 60,000 forints. The first courses were held in the academic year of 1635–1636. At the time of the university’s foundation, the archbishopric of Esztergom resided in Nagyszombat (at present: Trnava, Slovakia) because its original seat had been occupied by the Turks. Pázmány made it clear at the foundation of the university that he considered Nagyszombat a temporary seat only and that the institution, as well as its foundations, would be moved to a more suitable location after the expulsion of the Turks from Hungary. The Studiorum Universitas, managed by the Jesuits for 140 years in Nagyszombat, was transferred to Buda in 1777 and to its final location in Pest in 1784. Its name changed several times during the centuries. Initially the Archbishopric University or Academy, it became the Buda Royal University under Maria Theresa. After relocating to Pest, it was called (Pest/Budapest) Hungarian Royal University and, later still, in the earlier 20th century, it bore the name of its founder and was known as Pázmány Péter University. After World War 2, the university was renamed Eötvös Loránd University after the world famous physicist.

Already in Pázmány’s time, various collections were the perhaps most important resources used in university education. The need for resources of this type led to the establishment of our coin collection as well. Since the Renaissance and the Baroque, the creation of private collections was a respected pastime and a fashionable means of social representation among the aristocracy and high-ranking clergymen, as well as the wealthy landed gentry.[1] In the 16th–18th centuries, aristocratic art collections mostly contained foreign works of art and curiosities; from the late 18th century, there was a growing interest in national history and national traditions, a tendency reflected also in the growth of these collections. In addition to the famous aristocratic and other collectors such as the Festeticses, Miklós Jankovich, Gedeon Ráday, Márton György Kovachich, István Horvát, the mineral collector Ferenc Drevenyák, and the Transylvanian Esterházy and Kemény counts, educational institutions too began to focus on establishing collections to be used in education.[2] The coin collection of the Jesuit College fits into this pattern. In the late18th and especially in the early 19th century, increasingly more private collections became public, with some of them incorporated into institutional collections either through donation or purchase. The coin collections of the university and of the Hungarian National Museum founded in the early 19th century often acquired major collections and various important pieces in this manner.

The university’s collection was created by Lipót Fischer SJ in 1753. The collection contained 1842 pieces at first. The efforts of the Jesuit monk in creating and enlarging the collection are reflected by the minute, hand-written inventories surviving from 1762–1763, which can be regarded as the first coin catalogues. The collection was made up of silver, copper and a few dozen gold coins, representing Greek, Roman (Republican and Imperial), and Hungarian royal coinage. Most of them were donations. The name of the donors is known in many cases: Jaszlinszky, Menyhért Andreánszki, Miklós Schrnitt, Bálint Kéri, Mátyás Pock, Károly Roth, Ignác Rozs and Miklós Muszka are mentioned by name.

In the 1770s, during the period of enlightened absolutism, state interference and the enforcement of the Viennese university model in education grew considerably. Simultaneously, Pope Clement XIV dissolved the Jesuit Order in 1773, and thus the Nagyszombat University became a royal university. Reforms in the university leadership and in the educational system were continuously high on the agenda from the later 18th century onward, and thus education itself was not seriously affected by the gradual decline and eventual cessation of the order.

The inventory made when the Jesuit order was dissolved also included the coin collection. The 5376 items inventoried at the time reflect the dynamic growth of the collection. Most of the coins were made of copper (65%), followed by silver (29%), tin (5%) and, lastly, gold (1%). The collection was dominated by Roman material; the proportion of Hungarian coins was much lower, comprising coins of the Árpád Dynasty and later sovereigns. The inventory specified a tin coin of Attila as being the oldest piece among the latter (the coin in question was actually a medal struck in the early modern age). The collection included two denars of King Saint Stephen, coins of King Matthias I and Leopold, as well as the coins of Hungarian aristocratic families the Batthyánys and the Esterházys – alongside coins of Russian tsars and tsaritsas. The antique and the Hungarian or Hungarian related coins were of great value in the late 18th century.[3]

After the dissolution of the order, the collection was transferred to the Nagyszombat University in accordance with Maria Theresa’s decree. The Ratio Educationis of 1777, the edict regulating education, specifically mentioned the Department of Numismatics and the issue of the archaeological collection and archaeological training when detailing the departments concerned with training students in history (CC. §.: De Universitatis Bihliotheca, Numophylacio, ceterorumque antiquitatis monumentorum Musaeo). The decree explicitly refers to the coin cabinet: “Furthermore, there is a very rich coin cabinet, well furnished with Latin, Greek and Hungarian coins. From now on, no expenses, no efforts will be spared to enrich this treasure: one specimen of each new coin minted in the future in the hereditary provinces will be deposited there. Finally, care will be taken in the future that the archaeological relics to be found throughout Pannonia be gradually collected and preserved in the seat of the university, so they serve the edification not only of the country’s students of sciences, but also of foreigners brought here by curiosity.” The royal intention pointed well beyond the potential role of the collection in education: it was aimed at creating a Hungarian National Department of Coins and Antiquities! From that time on, one specimen of each coin issued in the hereditary provinces of the Habsburg Empire was to be sent to the university’s coin cabinet. In addition to the continuous enlargement of the collection, the decree emphasised the importance of numismatics and archaeology in university education. In 1778, after the relocation of the university to Buda and its reorganisation, the numismatic department was revived as Department of Numismatics and Archaeology (Cathedra Archaeologico–Numismatica), becoming the eleventh department of the Faculty of Humanities. The ceremonial inauguration of the university in Buda took place in June 1780. The decree noted that empirical historiography and the teaching of history can only be performed successfully with examples taken from the auxiliary disciplines (CLXXVII. §.), and thus the collection of coins and antiquities should be regarded as one of the principal repositories of historical sciences.[4] The numophylacium (coin cabinet) was first deposited in the building of the University Library, most likely because one of the curators of the library was, at the same time, professor of numismatics and archaeology. The Ratio Educationis regarded numismatics and archaeology as libera et extraordinaria studia, and stipulated two lectures per week for its study.

The renowned professor of archaeology in the late 1770s was István Schönwisner, a former Jesuit. He organised the transportation of the archaeological material from Nagyszombat to Buda. As a lecturer in the Theresianum in Vienna, he was familiar with archaeology and had already published several studies in this field. His professional interest was the archaeology of Pannonia, although he also wrote overviews of Hungarian coin finds and Hungarian monetary history. In addition to lecturing and work in the library, the professors of the archaeological department performed other duties as well. Schönwisner was regularly consulted regarding the archaeological finds brought to light in Hungary: he announced and published the discovery of the Roman military bath in Óbuda, made the necessary arrangements concerning the Roman milestone found in Csév and the coin hoard brought to light at Vörösberény, and he also had an intimate knowledge of the works of classical Antiquity and contemporary scholarship. He published several numismatic studies, one of these being the catalogue of Ferenc Széchényi’s coin collection, one of the foundations on which the Hungarian National Museum was bulit.[5] In addition to the then available foreign scholarly literature, Schönwisner probably used the numismatic textbook by Joseph Hilarius Eckhel, originally written for the university in Vienna and later introduced to the Hungarian Royal University.

The Department of Numismatics and Archaeology from 1777 to the Compromise of 1867

In 1784, the numismatic collection was moved from Buda Castle to the Franciscan friary in Pest together with the library; the coins were deposited in a side reading-room of the library’s main hall. The deposition of coin collections in university or state libraries was a common practice at the time. Major libraries often housed an impressive numismatic material; one important section of the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris, for example, was the department of numismatics and antiquities. In Hungary, the library of Keszthely, founded in 1798, also had a valuable coin collection.[6]

The university’s coin collection grew rapidly during these years. In 1782, Joseph II dissolved the Pauline Order (together with several other orders) and the collection of the Paulines of Pest was transferred to the university library. The coins were listed in a catalogue, Elechus Numorum qui ex abolito Pestiensi monasterio Paulinorum ad Bibliothecam Regiae Universitatis Pestiensis translati sunt. According to a later document, the coins were transferred in 1786 and the procedure was co-ordinated by Schönwisner. The catalogue contains a description of the Greek and Roman Republican and Imperial coins in the collection, as well as of various contemporary coins and medals.[7] Schönwisner curated the material with utmost care as shown by his precise inventories in the University Library. In 1794, he was appointed director of the library for his services rendered, and Mátyás Péter Katanchich, a Croatian Franciscan monk, was appointed lecturer of numismatics and archaeology, and custodian of the coin collection. He was followed by Alajos Emmánuel Stipsics in 1800. During the Napoleonic Wars, the university’s coin collection and other antiquities were taken to Eszék for safeguarding. The collection was enlarged by a major donation: Mihály Winkler, parish priest of Gödre (County Baranya), an honorary prebend of Pécs, presented his painstakingly assembled collection to the university. His catalogue is very accurate, a meticulous numismatic work. Schönwisner estimated the collection’s value at 300 forints. In 1817, the collection consisting of 14492 pieces was curated by József Weszerle, professor of numismatics and archaeology, who also made a new inventory.[8] After a few years of uncertainty, Weszerle was succeeded by Ferenc Kiss as head of the department, who held lectures on numismatica, archaeologia and other auxiliary disciplines for ten years. He also held practical sessions as part of his numismatic courses. His death in 1859 marked the end of the department’s first great period.

From the later 19th century onward, the close ties between the university’s coin cabinet and the library, the duties of the professors holding two post and the education organised primarily around numismatics underwent a gradual change. Novel elements in the archaeological education of the new era were the introduction of private lecturers (Privatdozent) and the assessment of professorial competency by a committee. The lecturers of the new era maintained close ties with museums owing to the joint curatorship of the university library and the coin collection. Regarding the period’s major numismatic works, Jakab Rupp, Hungarian Court Chamber archivist must be mentioned, who assembled a two-volume coin catalogue of medieval Hungarian coins. The corpus meeting the highest academic standards of the era became a widely used handbook for identifying Hungarian coins both in Hungary and abroad for over half a century.[9] The other outstanding contribution to Hungarian numismatic studies was made by Weszerle, who wrote a comprehensive overview based on written sources and coin descriptions. His manuscript remained unfinished because of his untimely death, but his engraved plates were published twice after his death.[10]

The coin collection grew continuously. Commemorative medals were designed in 1780 after the relocation of the university from Nagyszombat to Buda and in the year of the university’s ceremonial inauguration; one of each was presented to the coin collection. The university celebrated the 50th anniversary of its reorganisation in 1830. A commemorative medal was designed for the jubilee by József Dániel Böhm, the Vienna court engraver. Three students each of the university’s four faculties were awarded a gold or silver medal by Rector Ignác Stáhly for their outstanding academic achievement. One of the gold pieces was given to the university collection.[11]

In the earlier 19th century, the university collection ranked as the country’s most significant regarding both the number of coins and their quality: in 1849, it contained 15,600 coins, still the highest number in the country.[12] The coin collection of the Hungarian National Museum, established in 1802 with 2675 pieces, was also growing rapidly, comprising some 15–16,000 pieces in the 1830s, similarly to the university collection. Around 1830–40, coins from several private collections were acquired by the university. The activity and impressive collection (manuscripts, library, paintings, coins, goldsmith’s works, etc.) of the art collector Miklós Jankovich must be mentioned in this respect. The collections assembled by Professors Ferenc Weszerle and Ferenc Kiss enriched the coin collections of both the Hungarian National Museum and the university. Jankovich enlarged his collection through purchases, exchanges and the material brought to light on various excavations for over four decades. The first, larger collection was acquired by the Hungarian National Museum, the second one was eventually auctioned, but even so, some pieces were acquired by the university coin department[13]. Between 1866 and 1909, a decree of the Ministry of Finance stipulated that the coin departments of the Hungarian National Museum and of the university were entitled to select pieces from the coin hoards and treasure troves found in Hungary. The remaining coins rejected by these two institutes were melted down at first; later, from 1873, they were handed back to the finder after a certain portion was deducted by the treasury, in accordance with the ministerial regulation. Thus, instead of being destroyed, the finds could make their way into the collections of municipal museums or private collections through auctions.[14]

The harsh measures of the decade following the crush of the 1848–49 War of Independence could be felt in the treatment of the coin department too. The Viennese coin department was entitled to select the most valuable pieces from the university collection, although it is uncertain whether this actually happened from the surviving documents. Following his appointment as professor in 1867, Flóris Rómer recorded the items missing from the collection inventoried by Ferenc Kiss: “in my own defence I must declare that several coins of the Árpádian Age, described as part of the university collection in Rupp’s work, can no longer be found in the collection, and are not listed in this register either, furthermore, some of them have been replaced with coins of other kings.” Despite the absolutistic rule of the Vienna court, a modest growth can nonetheless be noted. According to the review of the collection in 1860, there were 16,061 coins, some 461 pieces more than in 1849. In the 1860s and 1870s, Rómer made every effort to enlarge the collection: he requested a higher budget and he also ordered the two large coin cabinets.[15]

Archaeological education and the coin collection from the Compromise of 1867 to the present

Rómer’s appointment as professor meant a significant advance in Hungarian archaeological training. His activity brought genuine prestige to archaeology and university education. His educational vision and activity were far ahead of his time. He began lecturing in 1863, and the number of his courses gradually increased over time. Most courses focused on classical archaeology at the time the archaeological department was founded; Rómer’s lectures on archaeology and numismatics were broadened to cover prehistoric archaeology as well. His interests and scholarly publications covered several periods and subject, ranging from prehistoric archaeology to medieval archaeology and art history. He organised field trips for his students, and he proposed scholarships for students specialising in history and philology to work in the Hungarian National Museum. A new centre of Hungarian archaeology was also formed in Transylvania (at present: Cluj-Napoca, Romania) at this time. The Kolozsvár University and the Transylvanian Museum Association jointly conducted excavations and published the results.

Rómer was succeeded by József Hampel for a short time, who was followed by Károly Torma, Torma held lectures primarily on the Dacian and Pannonian relics, which he complemented with field training; he started the excavations in Aquincum. After Torma’s tenure ended and after his death, his former predecessor, Hampel became his successor. Hampel was Rómer’s devoted student and colleague: he was his student both in secondary school and at the university, later his assistant in the Hungarian National Museum. Hampel lectured for over twenty years, holding courses mostly on Greek and Roman art, with less attention devoted to numismatics. The nature of archaeological education – dominated by teacher training – did not change under Hampel, whose scholarly work won him international acclaim. He launched Archaeologiai Értesítő and was the director of the Department of Coins and Antiquities of the Hungarian National Museum. Hampel’s research interest extended to medieval archaeology, too; his work, published in 1905, became the handbook of medieval archaeology.[16] At that time, the department had assistants, whose task – on Rómer’s suggestion – was the assessment of the coin hoards in the Hungarian National Museum. Two of the assistants must be mentioned by name: Pál Harsányi and András Alföldi. Harsányi became the first head of the separate Department of Coins in the Hungarian National Museum, while Alföldi was appointed director of the university’s department. Bálint Kuzsinszky succeeded Hampel after his death in 1913; he was also the director of the Municipal History Museum (now the Budapest History Museum). Kuzsinszky had studied the university’s numismatic material in the time of Hampel already: in the early 1890s, he reviewed the entire collection together with László Réthy, curator of the Department of Coins and Antiquities of the Hungarian National Museum. The inventory prepared by Réthy, still in use today, was completed at that time.[17] By 1906, the collection containing 25,885 pieces became the third largest in the country. By the early 20th century, the coin cabinet of the Hungarian National Museum outnumbered by far the other collections with its roughly 133,000 pieces. The second largest collection was housed in the Bruckenthal Museum in Nagyszeben (at present: Sibiu, Romania). The university collection was roughly on par with those of the Benedictine friaries in Győr and Pannonhalma.[18] The university’s collection was the largest at that time in terms of the number of coins.

In the early decades of the 20th century, under Bálint Kuzsinszky’s professorship, the collection did not grow; after World War 1, the department did not exercise its right to select coins from hoards for its collection. Under the directorship of András Alföldi (1930–1948), there were fewer coins in the collection than earlier: 19,650 pieces in all. In the 1930s, the representative university volume edited by Antal Hekler published detailed statistics about the collection.[19] In spite of the decrease in the number of the coins, the collection grew through donations and other acquisitions. Alföldi contributed much to numismatic studies. He was a member of the Hungarian Numismatic Society and the editor of the Society’s periodical, Numizmatikai Közlöny. He launched the series Dissertationes Pannonicae, which published the doctoral dissertations of students of humanities. The Department of Prehistory led by Ferenc Tompa was established in his time, in 1938. From the late 1920s, several disciplines became part of the curriculum in the Department of Art History and Classical Archaeology led by Antal Hekler and the Department of Art History and Christian Archaeology led by Tibor Gerevich.

After World War 2, Hekler (who died in 1940), was succeeded by Zoltán Oroszlán, who also acted as the head of the Antique Department of the Museum of Fine Arts. János Banner from Szeged University was invited to head the Department of Prehistory after Tompa died in 1945. András Alföldi emigrated during the war; in 1948, he decided to remain abroad and resigned from his professorship. The professors were helped by assistant lecturers and private lecturers, many of whom later rose to prominence in their chosen field: Jenő Fitz, Mária Alföldi, Nándor Fettich, Lajos Nagy and János Szilágyi.[20]

In 1940, several important pieces of the university’s coin collection were transferred to the Hungarian National Museum. Acting on Professor Alföldi’s proposal, the Faculty of Humanities deposited 1196 coins in the museum’s numismatic department, but retained the university’s ownership. Most of the gold, silver and copper coins were Roman pieces or Baroque commemorative medals. According to the museum’s list of new acquisitions published in Numizmatikai Közlöny, most of the deposited coins filled gaps in the museum’s collection. However, the real reason for the deposit was probably that Alföldi feared possible wartime damages and believed that the coins would be safer in the museum; this is indicated by the fact that the most valuable coins were transferred to the museum’s coin cabinet, including pieces which were already represented in the museum’s collection. In 1999, the university requested the return of the deposit in order to revive its collection. The re-transferral of the coins was begun in the following years and is still in progress. The Greek, Roman, Byzantine, medieval and modern coins have already been returned, and the transferral of the commemorative medals has also begun.[21]

The coin cabinets

According to the period’s general practice, Fisher had small cabinets with shallow drawers made for the appropriate storage of the collection. His three cabinets have survived in good condition up to this day; they are finely-crafted, elegant pieces reflecting the period’s taste. The largest one is a two-door, late Baroque cabinet decorated with marquetry on the front and on the sides (height: 79 cm, width: 65 cm, depth: 50 cm). The upper part of the cabinet is decorated with a black-painted ornate shield framed by a gilded acanthus bearing a Latin inscription: ”lf you wish to see antique Roman relics, behold the imperial coins, you will learn much.” A gilt lead equestrian statue of King Leopold I set on a pedestal surmounts the cabinet. The cabinet is made of pinewood veneered by walnut; there are mouldings on the front, the sides and the top, their graining is squared on the front and on the sides, and parallel on the top. The grain of the panel inside the moulding is vertical, the inlay separating the moulding and the central panel is made of maple and yew. The inlays on the panels of the two door wings form acanthus leaves made of maple and walnut outlined with ink. The edges are made of profiled walnut. The drawers reflect the period's cabinet-making technique: their bottom is nailed to the sides (today this would be made by joints).

The two other cabinets are smaller than the first one. They are chest shaped, their front is also embellished with marquetry and they have elaborate copper handles on the sides (height: 65 cm, width: 32 cm, depth: 41 cm). One of them has an inscribed copper shield: “The splendid coins of the emperors with which the reverend Lipót Fischer of the Society of Jesus first furnished the Nagyszombat Academic College 1753.” The two cabinets are made of pine and walnut veneered with walnut. The shape of the marquetry is similar on the front, on the cover and on the sides: the graining of the moulding is squared, the stylised tendrils are made of fruit tree (sour cherry or elm) inlays in between two maple inlays. The graining of the panels in the motifs is parallel to the symmetric axis. The inner surface of the cabinet doors is also veneered and decorated with marquetry.

The three cabinets were placed on three tables in a distinguished location, in the library of the Jesuit college. The three mid-18thcentury cabinets and the equestrian statue of Leopold can still be seen in their original state in the coin cabinet of the Institute of Archaeological Sciences.[22]

About a hundred years later, two large, 173 cm high cabinets, each with 33 drawers, were donated to accommodate the growing coin collection: according to the inscription on the inner side of the door, the cabinets were a gift from the Hungarian National Museum’s natural history department in 1875 (Ex dono Camera naturalium musaei nation. Hungariae. 1875). The two simple cabinets are veneered with walnut, the inner side of the doors is veneered with maple. The lock of the cabinets runs vertically in the middle, with ornate copper mountings framing the keyholes. The drawers are numbered; it seems likely that the drawers of the late Baroque cabinets were also numbered at this time.

The present composition of the university collection

The composition of the collection clearly shows that it was not assembled systematically. Though it provides an excellent cross-section of the history of coinage and medals from antiquity to the 19th century, a fundamental requirement of an educational collection, the chronological and geographical distribution of the coins is very uneven. The main reason for this is that the initial 18th century collection of antique coins was principally enlarged through donations and the acquisition of various collections, as well as by the coin finds from the territory of Hungary, rather than by systematic purchases or a consistent collection policy. This is particularly conspicuous in the antique material, dominated by coins from 3rd and 4th centuries, but containing few Greek or Roman Republican coins. The same holds true for the medieval material, comprising only two hundred pieces representing the Árpádian Age, and several thousand from the reigns of Matthias I, Wladislas II and Louis II. Most of the post-medieval coins are 16th–17th century German and Polish issues, these being the most frequent pieces in the period’s coin hoards. The collection of the university was thus principally enlarged from coin hoards, especially during the later 19th and the early 20th century. After World War 2, the enlargement of the collection practically ceased.

The collection is made up of three major units. The antique collection contains about 9000 Greek, Celtic, Roman and Byzantine coins, and there are also about 9000 pieces in the medieval and early modern collection, which comprises both early medieval European coins and 19th century ones, although the largest part is the collection of about 5000 Hungarian and Transylvanian coins. The third unit consists of the roughly 1000 commemorative medals from the 16th–19th centuries.