funerary coat of arms

Funerary coats of arms were hung on walls of churches with, or sometimes instead of, funerary monuments. They were enormous, usually circular objects in which the coat of arms of the deceased was framed by ornamentation. There was a long inscription running along the border, while there were war trophies on the outside. In the early examples even actual weapons, the arms of the knight, were hung by the side of the coat of arms. An imposing series of funerary coats of arms of the Esterházy family decorate the walls of the Jesuit church of Nagyszombat (Trnava, Slovakia).

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