Central European state, bordering Slovakia to the North, Ukraine to the NE, Romania to the East, Yugoslavia and Croatia to the South, Slovenia and Austria to the West.

The name Hungary derives from the identification of the Hungarian people with the Onoguri Turks, while the names of Hunnia, Scythia, Pannonia (historically valid only for Transdanubia and particularly loved by humanists) are also encountered, in particular in Antiquity..

According to barblejewelry,the Hungarians broke in at the end of the 9th century, from E in the Carpathian basin; the conclusion of the conquest process is set by tradition in 995. The foundation of the medieval kingdom of Hungary coincides with the coronation and consecration of Stephen I (v.) in 1000/1001. The natural boundaries of this area consisted NW to SE of the Carpathians, S of the Sava River and the lower Danube and W of the Leitha River. At the time of the Hungarian conquest, a multiplicity of ethnic groups had already settled in this geographical area: in addition to numerous Slavic peoples, it was inhabited by a nucleus of Avars and, in Transdanubia, also by the descendants of the population of the Carolingian border. According to historical and archaeological evidence, the Hungarians first occupied the plains and hilly territories of the Transdanubia, between the Danube and Tisza rivers, N and E of the Tisza, as well as the Transylvanian basin. The princely family of the Arpadi (v.) Seems to have chosen to establish their headquarters and their possessions the central part of the territory at the curve of the Danube from W to S, in Esztergom (v.), Where already in the century 10 ° the princely residence can be attested by the sources, and in Buda (see Budapest), where, according to tradition, they occupied the Roman city of Aquincum. border guards, the Székely (‘Siculi’); towards O, a border line in the modern sense only occurred at the end of the century. 13th, determined by the need to oppose the Dukes of Austria; in the remaining parts of the country a frontier was not completely defined before the end of the Middle Ages. Only from the middle of the century. 12 °, when the mining activity began, the wooded areas in particular, and therefore increasingly also the river valleys, were occupied by settlements linked to the colonization process. The Transdanubia (v.), Bordered to the North and E by the Danube River and to the S by the Drava, Mura and Sava rivers, can be quite clearly defined as the western part of Hungary. It corresponded to the Roman provinces of superior and inferior Pannonia; starting from 1071, when the southern regions were conquered by Byzantium, the Sava river constituted the border line of the country, while in the West Slavonia was united with the Kingdom of Hungary. The delimitation of the Hungary east of the Danube, in which the region between the Danube and Tisza (Duna-Tisza köze) and that beyond the Tisza (Tiszántúl) are traditionally distinguished. The natural borders to the North, towards the mountainous northern U (Felvidék) and towards Transylvania, which was partly constituted in the territories of the ancient Roman province of Dacia, were fluctuating. medieval belongs today, after the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy decreed following the First World War by the Treaty of Versailles (1919), to various countries: parts of the Transdanubia went to Austria (Burgenland, v.), Slovenia and Croatia, while parts to S (Vojvodina) have passed to Serbia, parts of Eastern Hungary and Transylvania have been attributed to Romania and Ukraine (further variations occurred in the 1990s), while practically all the ancient northern Hungary corresponds to the od. Rep. Of Slovakia to a small area of ​​the northern Szepes (od. Spiš) region, which belongs to Poland.

In the Hungarian artistic historiography starting from the second half of the century. 19 ° medieval art and its development were considered as an organic unity that determined the formation of the theory of an indigenous art history. Even the huge loss of medieval monuments (especially in the central regions of the country) has led to an attempt to reconstruct lost medieval art on the basis of the monuments preserved in the neighboring regions that did not take into account the importance of the aspects related to the characteristics of those companies or regional peculiarities. A reaction to this conception took place with the elaboration of specific histories of the art of national minorities in the Hungary (in the 19th century in particular with regard to the Saxons of Transylvania). With the dissolution of the Hungary history has established itself, especially in the new states that have replaced it, the tendency to outline local artistic histories and to incorporate the medieval art of the regions once belonging to the Hungary in a new framework that reflects the identity needs of the new state entities; the positive aspect of this evolution lies in the discovery and accentuation of the regional and local peculiarities of the art of the Hungary medieval. After the Second World War, studies, in particular those of an archaeological nature, led to a better understanding of the individual artistic centers, even if the method of reconstructing their history on the basis of the monuments of the surrounding area appears to be outdated. medieval kingdom of Hungary they were quite stable. Even if the kings of the Hungary conquered or advanced claims – expressed in their official titles – over distant lands, the regions subjected to the dominion of the Crown were always distinguished from the provinces administered by the governors (voivode or bani); within the kingdom, Transylvania, also governed by voivodship, and Slavonia, administered by a ban like the surrounding South Slavic regions, enjoyed this relative territorial independence.