Travelling and Exoticism
Pilgrimages and Religious Missions
Europe was crisscrossed by a network of different types of communication routes.
Europe was crisscrossed by a network of different types of communication routes within which pilgrimage played a key role in the dissemination of different religious cults, relics and objects, patronising artists and influencing taste. Associated with travel and pilgrimage is the copying of miraculous images, which reveals just how powerful these routes and cultural links were, albeit within well defined political frontiers. Some abbeys, convents and monasteries became major educational centres, acting not only as repositories of knowledge, but also production and cultural centres as well.
Benedictine Abbey of St. Aignan in Tihany

1720s to 1778
Tihany, Nyugat-Magyarország / West Hungary, Hungary
Painter-gilders: József Cordelli, János Stern; fresco painter: Ambrosio Dornetti; master joiners/wood carvers: Sebestyén (Sebastian) Stulhoff (1723–1779); sculptor: József Hubert; painters (main altar) János Novák; renovation: Győző Cziegler and other unknown masters
The Benedictine Abbey at Tihany was founded in 1055 by King András I of the Árpád dynasty (1046–60) in honour of the Virgin Mary and the titular saint Anianus (Aignan).