A Roundtable Talk with Our Sponsors on Patronage
On 11th April, in the monastery’s impressive reception hall, we had a roundtable talk on patronage. The participants were the decisive agents of our country’s economic and cultural life sponsoring the Archabbey of Pannonhalma for years. Apelso Trust Zrt supporting the restoration of the archival documents was represented by Antall György and Kállay András, members of the board of directors.
Our Archives has systematically concentrated on the restoration of our collection’s damaged or endangered items for decades. The mediaeval documents needing restoration have preventively been restored since the 1990s. In 2022, Apelso Trust sponsored the restoration of an 11-metre-long document of 1568 related to Deáki.
Our institution preserves hundreds of manuscript maps, dozens of them need restoration. Even the maps in relatively good condition need intervention because a considerable part of them is filed being rolled in, which cannot be considered an optimal solution from the point of view of care of documents. Last year, Apelso Trust sponsored the restoration of 23 maps, and NKA sponsored that of 5 great-shaped manuscript and rolled-in maps. These manuscript almost artistic maps depicted the Archabbey’s domains in Transdanubia and Upper Hungary, and their husbandry. They serve heaps of information about the given settlements concerning their 18th–19th-century conditions, local names, hydrography, abbatial economy, and in addition, they are expressive witnesses of contemporary engineering.
The participants of the roundtable talk sponsored the library, the secondary school, the Arcus Temporum Festival, the restoration of the Archabbey’s organs and many other projects besides our Archives. They reported on their inspiration of sponsor activity, personal motives and their relation to the Archabbey. According to Antall György, since their trustee is concerned with the preservation of family heritage, they must take a backseat to supporting cultural assets. For that very reason, they have sponsored the Archabbey’s Archives and Library for years. “As for us, taking social responsibility is absolutely natural, since the more one has the more one has to do.” Inter alia, they sponsored the restoration of the Deáki-document because the family of Antall György’s mother comes from there.
After the discussion, the following items were presented: as for the Archives, three manuscript maps to be restored and three manuscript maps already restored, and as fort the Library, a restored codex, the Pfannberg Missal and three old prints to be restored.
The detailed account of the programme can be read on the Archabbey’s home-page here.