County to country : regional aspects in the research of Romanesque art in Hungary

The usual framework of Romanesque studies is the province, such as Burgundy, Tuscany or Bavaria. In Hungary, however, it has no tradition. The usual framework is either a smaller unit (county, megye in Hungarian) or a larger territory: the entire medieval Hungarian Kingdom, i.e. the Carpathian Basin. This paper discusses the historiography of these two traditions starting with the first Hungarian art historian generation (Arnold Ipolyi, Flóris Rómer, Imre Henszlmann) to contemporaneous efforts of the topographical works of historic monuments and collections of medieval churches, mainly compiled by archaeologists on the level of the county. On the other hand, each generation published its own summary of Romanesque art of Hungary. The regional aspect is a new trend, started by the exhibition on Transdanubia in 1994, however, monographic studies are still missing.