ABSTRACT
Introduction Whether there existed in the twelfth century an ‘art of the Hospitaller Order’ – that is, a distinctive iconography or a typical choice of subjects characterizing artworks made under Hospitaller patronage – is a very difficult question to answer, because so little has survived from the monumental art of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem. The frescos studied by Jaroslav Folda at the castles of Crac des Chevaliers and Marqab did not provide conclusive results to that question, 1 and neither did the additional scenes recently discovered and deciphered by Balázs Major, Éva Galambos and the team of the Syro-Hungarian Archaeological Mission at Marqab. 2 For example, whereas among the subjects depicted at Marqab is the beheading of Saint John the Baptist, which might seem fitting for a Hospitaller cycle, other scenes are not specifically related to the Order, among them the tortures of the damned in hell and the Blessed being led to Paradise.
