The Hungarian Historical Review The Hungarian Historical Review The Hungarian Historical Review

Login

  • HOME
  • Journal Info
    • Journal Description
    • Editors & Boards
    • Publication ethics statement
    • Open access policy
    • For Publishers
    • Copyright
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Subscribe
    • Recommend to Library
    • Contact
  • Current Issue
  • All Issues
  • Call for Articles
  • Submissions
  • For Authors
  • Facebook
Published by: Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

2019_2_Vadas

Volume 8 Issue 2 CONTENTS

pdfBorder by the River – But Where is the River? Hydrological Changes and Borders in Medieval Hungary*

András Vadas
Eötvös Loránd University / Central European University
vadas.andras
@btk.elte.hu

Medieval estate borders were mostly formed by natural borders, such as hills, ditches, forests, meadows, etc. Of course, in many cases trees were marked in some form, or small mounds were built to clarify the running of estate borders. Almost none of these would seem at a first sight as firm as a border along rivers and streams. However, a closer look at law codes, customary law collections, and legal disputes that arose in connection with estate borders makes clear that, as borders of estates, bodies of water could be a basis for conflict. In this essay, I discuss sources from the medieval Kingdom of Hungary from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries that concern the problem of the change of land ownership as a consequence of changes in riverbeds.
In the late medieval compilation of the customary law of Hungary by Stephen Werbőczy, the Tripartitum, a surprisingly long section is dedicated to this problem. He clearly suggests that landownership does not change if a piece of land is attached to another person’s land by changes in the course of a river. Historians have drawn attention to this section of the Tripartitum and have suggested that this is one of the few parts in which Werbőczy does not apply Hungarian customary law, but rather uses Roman law. In my paper, which is based on a collection of similar lawsuits, I aim to demonstrate that there are a number of examples of cases in which Roman law prevailed before Werbőczy’s work, and, thus, the land in question was left in the hands of the previous owners as well as decisions according to which the shifting riverbed went with a change in ownership.

Keywords: Legal history, water history, customary law, rivers, boundaries

Introduction

This river [the Tiber] moreover circles that splendid mountain on which the city of Perugia is situated and while flowing a great distance through its district, the river itself is bordered by plains, hills and similar places (…) when I was resting from my lecturing and in order to relax, was travelling towards a certain vacation house situated near Perugia above the Tiber, I began to contemplate the bends of the Tiber, its alluvion, the islands arising in the river, the changes of the river-bed as well as a host of unanswered questions which I had come across in practice. (…) I began to consider in various ways what the legal position was, not believing that I would take it any further (…) while I slept that night, I had a vision near dawn that a certain man, whose countenance I found gentle, came to me and he said the following: ‘Write down what you have begun to think about and since there is a need for illustration, provide mathematical diagrams[.]’1

The quotation above is from the prologue of a treatise by Bartolus de Saxoferrato (Sassoferrato), one of the most celebrated jurists of the fourteenth century. Bartolus, who was probably one of the most influential and, by 1355 (when this text was written), busy professors at the University of Perugia, decided to take some time off during the year. As is mentioned in the text, he headed to a villa (the location of which has not been identified by historians) overlooking the valley series of the Tiber. There, he began considering the question of who the islands emerging in the river belonged to and what happens with the ownership of a certain piece of land when the river which constitutes its border starts to meander along a different path, eroding parts of one person’s property and adding them to the far bank.

As suggested by the prologue, which is not lacking in topoi, Bartolus first thought it was an eccentric idea to discuss an issue like this in a treatise until a mysterious man, who occurred in his dream, urged him to do so. The anecdotal story behind the inspiration of the treatise known as Tractatus de fluminibus seu Tyberiadis (or sometimes referred to in an abbreviated form simply as Tyberiadis) may not have had much connections to what actually happened, and it is difficult to believe that the whole treatise could have been completed in just a few weeks’ time, as Bartolus suggests. Existing scholarship on the treatise attributed major importance to the circumstances of the formation of the work, especially the possible vacation and the location of the villa mentioned.2 These questions are important, of course, from the point of view of Bartolus himself, but they are probably less crucial with respect to the present essay. What is more interesting in the context of this discussion is simply that a major authority on Roman law at the time engaged in writing a work dedicated to the topic. It is worth noting that it seems from the above quote that he did not consider the question worthy of similar treatment.3 The prologue is somewhat controversial, as Bartolus also states that he encountered similar problems during his legal practice.

Bartolus’ work consists of three parts and focuses on two questions: who owns the land if an island emerges from a river and, when the river changes course, how should the borders of the connected estates be demarcated? One of the most important features of the treatise is that, in its argumentation, it combines legal reasoning and geometry. Bartolus drew numerous geometric figures with which he meticulously described how newly emerging islands or newly emerging lands connected to the existing lands should be divided. There are several variants of these drawings (because of the manuscript tradition), but an autograph fragment of the Tyberiadis preserved many figures which can be associated with Bartolus himself.4

Although as noted above, historians have tended to focus on the circumstances of the creation of the work and have dealt less with the text itself, the problem touched upon by it does come up in a number of law codes, customary law collections, and different documents related to lawsuits. And as mentioned, the very fact that Bartolus engaged in writing such a work suggests that the problem was not as rare as it may seem at a first glance. To what extent were the questions he was raising important as matters of theory? To what extent did he mean to offer an example, with this text, of the potentials of combining geometry and law instead of simply addressing a legal problem? Does the Hungarian source material offer insights into similar problems? How were such cases resolved in medieval Europe and in Hungary? In this essay, I discuss these problems on the basis of legal evidence, more specifically, the example of legal codes, customary law collections, and, most importantly, diplomas that settled similar, land-related disputes.

Despite the fact that Bartolus’ work discusses in detail what happens if a piece of land emerges on the bank of a river because of alluvial activity, he partly disregards a problem which, in light of the Hungarian source material, appears to have been a recurring issue.5 He never considers what exactly happens if the piece of land in question used to be the property of the landlord of the other bank of the river, i.e. it did not emerge from the river, but was detached from one person’s property and attached by the river to a property belonging to someone else. In the cases Bartolus discusses, the principles of geometry can be applied using geometrical diagrams. The general principle he suggests is quite easy to explain in the sense that it aligns the ownership of the islands on a bank to the parallel landownership. In Bartolus’ treatise, the same applies to lands which emerge from the alluvium in consequence of years of accumulation. This phenomenon in Roman law is usually referred to as accretion, and it was adjudicated in the ancient legal tradition in the same manner as used by Bartolus.6 This was not only important in cases of meandering rivers, but also in the case of lands emerging along seashores.7 Of course, in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary and probably with a few exceptions, everywhere in Europe, the formation of new lands was a consequence of shifts in the flow of rivers rather than the movement of seawaters. This process in legal tradition is usually referred to as avulsion. It can be considered a special form of accretion. As noted, Bartolus did not suggest a definitive solution to this question. It is not clear why was the question partly omitted by Bartolus. It can be connected to the fact that the most important motivation for the work was to demonstrate the possibilities of integrating geometry and law. This works well in the classical cases of accretion, but in the case of avulsion, the legal principle is the main question, and there is little space for geometry. Even if Bartolus disregarded this particular problem, it nonetheless was clearly a recurrent issue in historical times going back to the period before the birth of pragmatic literacy.

As a consequence of this, historians have devoted some attention to the problem for quite some time now. It has been discussed in at least three quite distinct fields of research: property rights in general, history, and geography/geomorphology. Historians were the first to study the problem. In most cases, they analyzed emblematic events on a local scale and considered how the processes in question impacted societies and economic and political structures. The most important example was a major hydrological change in the valley of the River Po. The event, usually referred to as Rotta della Cucca (Cucca breach), first attracted the attention of Italian historians in the eighteenth century. Ludovico Antonio Muratori, one of the pioneers of the study of medieval Italy, was the first historian to discuss the Cucca breach.8 The basis for the assessment of the event is a chapter in Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards, in which Paul describes the floods of 589. As he notes, in this year, several floods occurred along different rivers in Italy of which the most dangerous was that of the River Adige.9 Scholarship, building a great deal on the work of Muratori, saw the event as the main force in the transformation of the riverine landscapes and the course of the Po and Adige Rivers. It created extensive marshlands in the surroundings of the mouth of the two rivers and transformed the borders of properties in Veneto. In recent decades, historians have criticized this oversimplifying view of the landscape changes in the region and have tended to see it as a long process during which the channel system maintained by the Roman administration and taken over by the Lombards was intentionally abandoned. The marshes that came into being as a consequence of the end of the maintenance works proved to useful as a form of protection for the northern Italian territories against the Exarchate of Ravenna.10

In the explanation of the processes involved, the change in the landholdings was only a marginal issue, but it nonetheless drew the attention of scholars to the fact that riverine landscapes were not nearly as fixed in the Early (or High or Late) Middle Ages as they became in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, by which time most of the rivers in the densely inhabited areas of Europe has gone through long regulation processes. This probably is the most thoroughly studied medieval landscape change brought about by shifts in riverbeds, but at least one further area is worth emphasizing. Going back to the nineteenth century, research on the changing waterscapes of the Low Countries also generated interest among Dutch and Flemish historians. As was true in the Italian case, the most important element of the geographical processes which caught the attention of historians was not primarily the change in individual estate borders, but rather the major transformation of long stretches of the seashores. Documentary and cartographic documents were the first sources used by historians in the Low Countries, but as is true in the case of Italy, in the last half century, research done by geographers and geomorphologists has significantly widened the opportunities to study the hydrological processes of the Holocene, or in this case, the Late Holocene. Geographers in most cases working together with historians, have shown the potential of research on the avulsion histories of particular rivers in the Low Countries,11 southern France,12 and other parts of Europe.13

The use of written, cartographic evidence combined with geomorphology not only lead to studies on changes in riverine landscapes and, accompanying this, the connected land holding structure in Western Europe, but also produced studies addressing the problem in Central Europe and in Hungary in particular. A number of works were dedicated to the changes in the waterscape around Vienna in the late medieval period and the Early Modern times, changes which resulted in a series of lawsuits between the landowners by the Danube.14 Research also demonstrated significant changes in the riverine landscapes in the Carpathian Basin in historical times, including the Danube River,15 the Rába river,16 the Tisza River,17 and the Dráva River18 valleys.19 Most of the above mentioned studies, however, addressed the riverbed changes and the alluvial development of major rivers in Europe. Much less attention has been dedicated to minor rivers and streams, despite their potential relevance. There is ample and adequate source material in part because, like the major rivers, in many cases minor rivers were also boundaries of estates, as is evident on the basis of hundreds of perambulation documents, boundary markers, and cartographic data. The Hungarian source material, especially up to the late fourteenth century, is somewhat exceptional in this sense, as perambulations make up probably as much as seven to eight percent of the whole of the medieval legal source material.20 In case of legal disputes concerning the riverbed changes, this group of sources will be of crucial importance to this discussion, as perambulations in most cases were done as stages of legal disputes, and one of the most important kinds of disputes (if not the most frequent) involved changes in riverbeds. These legal disputes concerned not only natural changes in the hydrogeography, but also artificial riverbed modifications for mill races, fish ponds, irrigation, etc. which in some cases went with changes to the borders of estates. Along with historians and specialists in geomorphology, as mentioned earlier, legal writers also devoted attention to the legal problems created by the changing riverbeds in sections where the rivers were boundaries themselves. They mostly contributed to the problem by analyzing the collections of Roman law and considering the contemporary implications of avulsion.21

All of the approaches listed above are important with respect to the present paper, as in many cases they contribute to the contextualization of the results based on the Hungarian source material. In the next subchapters, drawing on the source material from the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, I will argue that the problem raised by Bartolus is not entirely theoretical, and there was a more or less stabilized customary law concerning how to resolve the similar disputes, even if it was not based on the principles he argued for.

The Border between Ľubotín and Orlov – What can a Single Case Reveal?

In 1349, one of the landlords in Sáros County, Rikalf son of Rikalf, supplicated to King Louis I according to which the Poprad River had detached a tract from his land called Ľubotín (Lubotény). While the river had demarcated his land from the village of the king called Orlov (Orló), when its course changed, it flowed through his estate, Ľubotín.22 The question of the ownership of the lands of Ľubotín may have not been simple, as only a quarter of a century earlier, the family had had to appeal to King Charles I as Phillip Druget, the influential Italian nobleman and member of the king’s entourage, had attempted to obtain some of the lands that belonged to Ľubotín.23 The endeavor of the Drugets may not have come as a surprise, as this was the period in which the family rapidly extended its power in the region, but the Poprad River’s changing riverbed may not have been among the potential threats with which Rikalf had calculated.24 In answer to the appeal, King Louis ordered Sáros County to investigate the case. The investigation was led by a noble magistrate (iudex nobilium or szolgabíró in Hungarian) of the county named Tivadar and a bailiff (homo provincie), a certain Jacob son of Sükösd.25 In the course of the investigation, they interrogated the local nobility and tenant peasants, especially those of two nearby settlements, Plaveč (Palocsa) and Gerlavágása (a lost settlers’ village somewhere close to three previously mentioned settlements). The investigation came to the conclusion that the supplicant was right and the Poprad River indeed had detached pieces of lands from Rikalf’s property.26 According to the documents related to the case, the change in the riverbed happened without human intervention. It was probably caused by floods which changed the hydrography of the area, although this was never explicitly stated in the sources.27

Despite the verification of Rikalf’s claim, the case was probably not settled, as ten years later, in 1359, the question was again brought to the court by Rikalf’s family. Based on the documents issued in 1359, it is safe to assume that the lands in question during the ten years between the cases were used by the kings’ tenant peasants, and the territories in question were never returned to Rikalf and his family. This is interesting in light of the fact that obviously the intention of Rikalf in 1349 was to get back the lands in question, and the investigation concluded with the acknowledgement that lands originally had been in his possession. This suggests that in these cases, land was thought to belong to the original owners, in this case Rikalf. But apparently it took ten years to gain back these pieces of land in response to the complaint of Rikalf and Peter son of Ladislaus, from the same family. In the end, the lands were reassigned not (or not only) because they originally belonged to Rikalf’s family, but because of the merits of the family in service of King Louis I.28 This time, the document clearly referred to the reason for the change in the riverbed. As was already probable from the documents from 1349, the river’s main flow was not modified artificially, but was identified as a consequence of the rapid current of the river. This time, the case was settled with a reinstitution of the previous owners to the lands in question in the presence of a deputy of the chapter of Szepes (Spišská Kapitula) and a homo regius. As usually done in these cases, a new perambulation of the land in question was carried out in which a section is described as the former bed of the Poprad River.

Even if, in 1359, the land in question seems to have been clearly reassigned to Rikalf and his family, the case was not settled for the rest of the Middle Ages. Almost fifty years after this episode, in 1405 at the noble assembly of Abaúj and Sáros Counties held in Košice, the noble judges and vice-counts (vicecomites) of the latter county testified that the same lands that had been disputed in 1349 and 1359 originally belonged to Ľubotín and thus rightfully belonged to the successors of Rikalf.29

The set of documents relating to the case of the lands by the Poprad River between Ľubotín and Orlov reveals a number of important issues. In 1349, according to the surviving sources Rikalf attempted to prove that the Poprad River had changed its bed because proving this would have allowed him to keep using the lands despite the fact that by then they were on the other bank of the Poprad River. This suggests that even if the change in the riverbed of the Poprad River took place as part of a natural process, this still would not have changed the landownership. However, the picture is less clear in the case of 1359, when the lands in question were (re)instituted to the Rikalf sons in return for their service and not because they had belonged to the family. Nonetheless, the fact that the same lands were reinstituted to the Rikalf family suggests that the question was also connected in some way to the notion of previous ownership. In light of the seemingly contradictory documents, it is certainly worth considering whether there was a customary law in medieval Hungary which would have applied to similar cases.

 

Riverbed Changes and Estate Borders – Was There a Medieval Customary Law in Hungary?

In an article cited above a number of times, István Tringli not only discussed mill construction but also devoted some attention to the problem I am addressing here. He suggested that the changes of estate borders in consequence of riverbed changes may have been a problem of minor importance in medieval Hungary, and these issues were certainly minor compared to the lawsuits concerning water mills. Simply the number of lawsuits related to the two problems shows that milling rights were more frequently occurring problems than lawsuits related simply to riverbed changes. By the thirteenth and especially by the fourteenth century, the number of mills in Hungary was high enough that the buildings had become obstacles to one another. As was shown, this gave ground to the formation of a relatively well-defined customary law related to the use of waters and the construction of water mills.30 However, the lasting struggle for the ownership of the lands between Ľubotín and Orlov suggests that with regard to riverbed changes, the norm either was anything but clear or the tenants of Orlov, who belonged to the land of the king, attempted to use their favorable position against Ľubotín. The picture is not clear based on this one case study, but it becomes somewhat clearer if one looks at a number of cases. But before doing so, I turn to the seemingly most self-evident source one can touch upon when discussing whether there was a customary law on a specific question, namely the Tripartitum by Stephen Werbőczy, compiled in the 1510s. Webőczy discusses the question in a surprisingly extensive manner compared to its seemingly minor importance:

 

Then, as the boundaries and borders of many free cities, villages, estates and many towns and deserted lands are set and defined by rivers and streams; and by the flood and force of these waters often large pieces of land, meadows and woods are separated, carried away and attached to the area of another neighboring city, town or estate; since the river, driven by vehement flood often strays and spills from its usual course, flow and bed into a new bed; so some people think and believe that the lands, meadows and woods that were annexed and attached to the area of another neighboring free city, town or village due to a change in the flow, course or bed of the river ought to belong to and come into the possession of that free city, town or village; arguing and stating that their boundaries are set by the flow, course and bed of the river. But this opinion is not correct.

[1] For, this way many frauds could be committed, and the waters and rivers—with hidden canals, and sometimes by making shallow dikes, or raising dams or filling up the bed—could be driven into a new course and bed in any direction, according to will; thus someone could easily usurp another’s lands, woods and meadows.

[2] Therefore the opposite opinion shall be accepted as correct (…)31

These points of Werbőczy’s work were discussed first in the nineteenth century. In his discussion of this part of the Tripartitum, Rezső Dell’Adami suggests that, unlike in the overwhelming majority of the work, in this case, Werbőczy applied the principles of Roman law and not Hungarian customary law.32 In the 1930s, Alajos Degré came back to the question and also drew attention to the fact that Hungarian customary law was different from what Werbőczy actually applied. Unlike Dell’Adami, Degré gathered a number of documents which support this contention.33 Following in the footsteps of Degré, Tringli also accepted that the origin of this part of Werbőczy’s work is in Roman law. Roman law and the Digest itself is not as unambiguous on this question as Werbőczy’s text or what has been suggested by the later scholarship.34 The Saxon Mirror (Sachsenspiegel) compiled in the early thirteenth century offers a similar resolution to the problems as the solution proposed in the Tripartitum, but in the case of the Saxon customary law compilation, the influence of the Digest is more clear-cut according to research.35 When addressing changes to the waterscape, all three law sources start from the principle that in the case of a rapid shift in the course of a river, the detachment of a piece of land from someone’s property and its attachment to someone else’s property would not result in a change of landownership. However, while the two customary law collections from the Middle Ages did not include any exception to this principle, the Digest did include a very important one, namely if this shift in the flow of the river proves lasting.36

From the point of view of this paper, the most important question is whether the points made by Werbőczy represented practice by the late medieval period or not. The picture that unfolds on the basis of an analysis of court cases from the period up to the early sixteenth century is not straightforward. Based on the above example from the Poprad River valley, one may suggest that Werbőczy summarized the existing customs, but in the following pages, I discuss a number of cases on the basis of which I conclude that, in many respects, Werbőczy applied a different principle than what was prevailing in his time.

In this, the most important step was to gather at least a statistically relevant number of cases. The existing secondary literature refers only to a few examples, but based on an investigation of the most important regesta collections and cartularies, I identified almost sixty relevant cases as part of my research. There would be no point in discussing each case one by one, mostly because, for the most part, little information is provided on the background of the legal case. I chose rather to analyze either cases which for some reason seemed important to an understanding of the different legal norms or cases which showed shifts in practices.

The earliest lawsuit which may illustrate the application of customary law dates from 1338. As indicated by the document, a certain Ivánka son of János Turóci submitted a complaint to the ispán (comes) of Zólyom County, Master Doncs. According to Ivánka, his interests were harmed by a land transaction that had taken place on Galovany, an estate neighboring his own. Provost Pál son of Gele and Gál son of Jakab son of Albert agreed to exchange certain pieces of land. According Ivánka’s complaint, Pál came into possession of the piece of land that neighbored his. While Ivánka was engaged in growing crops, Pál was herding animals, and according to Ivánka, Pál’s animals caused losses to his ploughlands and meadows. Pál, however, claimed that Ivánka had erected boundary markers on fields which he (Pál) had received from the ispán himself, Doncs. Ivánka insisted that it was Pál who had erected these boundary markers. Doncs called Pál and fifty witnesses to appear at the convent of Turóc (Kláštor pod Znievom) and testify that it was Ivánka who had erected the boundary markers. The case was further complicated by the fact that Pál was the notary of Doncs. It turned out that it was Pál himself who penned the charter and that it was Ivánka who erected the markers. This element of the case became somewhat obsolete, as the boundaries later changed when the stream called Porouathka found a new riverbed and detached a piece of land from Ivánka’s estate and attached it to that of Pál.37 This strongly suggests that, according to both parties, independent of the boundary markers, the boundary between the two properties changed with the change of the stream’s bed.

Another case from the following year suggests that similar cases were not always considered in the same way in the Angevin period. In 1339, a case unfolded on the running of the border between two estates, Čoltovo and Lekeňa (part of present day Bohúňovo) in Gömör County, not very far from the area involved in the previous case. The boundary between the two estates at one of its sections was the stream called Hablucapataka until the point where it reaches the Sajó River. The litigants were Pál son of Gallus, who owned Čoltovo, and the sons of Miklós Forgách, András and Miklós, who owned Lekeňa. Both parties contended that the other side had taken possession of lands which belonged to them. According to András, Pál artificially let the stream into a new riverbed. The witnesses, however, testified that the change in the course of the river had been caused, rather, by floods. The alluvium carried by the floods, according to the witnesses, filled up the former bed of the stream, and thus the water changed course. The importance in proving that the change in the riverbed was artificial or natural shows that the two cases were assessed differently. Of course, it was the change in the natural riverbed that meant a boundary shift in the period and not the artificial modification of the riverbed. Despite the fact that in this case the riverbed change would have resulted in a change in the ownership of this piece of land, this did not take place. It turned out, during the trial that the whole area in question indeed fell in the land of András Forgách. Thus, the land in question remained in his hands.38

From the very same decade, however, there is a case which suggests that for the parties involved not even natural changes to the course of a river implied a change in landownership. For instance, this was the case in 1340 when the boundary between two pieces of lands, Szentmárton and Kóród in Transylvania (today both within the borders of Coroisânmărtin), was demarcated, a section of which was formed by the Holt-Küküllő River (a branch or backwater of the Târnava Mică River). Probably because of the less clearly defined riverbed, the two parties decided they would erect boundary markers in the dry section of the bed together. They did so in order to fix the boundary between the lands in case floods washed away the riverbed.39 This indicates that even natural changes to the boundaries were not associated with a change in ownership or at least that sometimes parties could come to an agreement that went against custom. Probably the show of caution in this case was in the interests of both parties, as it may not have been evident which path the river would choose in if the old riverbed were filled, so none of the landlords would have known if they would have won or lost territories. It is difficult to identify the exact reason for this kind of agreement, as by the time of the First Military Survey (1782–1785), therefore the first precise mapping of the area, this branch of the Kis-Küküllő (Târnava Mică River) had disappeared entirely.

Even clearer proof of the not fully crystallized customary law regarding these cases is provided by a boundary dispute from 1347. The two parties involved were the bishopric of Eger and István son of Pál of Ónod. One section of the boundary between Ónod and Hídvég (present day Sajóhídvég) was the bed of the Sajó River. However, as time passed, the hydrography of the area changed, and two islands emerged with lands (duabus angulationibus vulgo zygeth vocatis), as well as a place for fishing (loca piscaturarum), on the Ónod side of the river. As part of this hydromorphological change, the main course of the Sajó River started to run within the borders of Hídvég. The sheet of the First Military Survey did not allow the identification of a former bed of the Sajó River between Hídvég, but a detailed mid-nineteenth century manuscript map of the area does.40 The bishopric of Eger tried to take possession of the abovementioned land, which was worth 13 marks, but István raised an objection against the bishopric’s claim. Pál Nagymartoni, the chief justice of Hungary, obliged István and thirteen other nobles to swear an oath that the land in question had belonged to him. As István took the oath along with the noble witnesses required, the lands in question were returned to him. Furthermore, because he had made a false claim, Miklós Dörögdi, the bishop of Eger, had to pay 13 marks as a fine.41 This suggests that, according to the chief justice, the case was clear, and ownership of the land was not changed simply by the fact that it had been shifted from one bank of the river to the other. The fact that the bishop had to pay a fine suggests that Nagymartoni considered this the norm at the time. In light of the few cases discussed above, this is not as clear as is suggested by the chief justice’s decision. Rather, this case may have been part of an attempt to create a custom in evaluating similar cases.

Analyses of every single case in which similar issues were involved would be superfluous, as very few considerations would arise which have not been raised by the disputes discussed above. While based on the above discussed examples it is not entirely clear how similar cases were handled in legal norms from the late fourteenth century on, there were only a few cases in which the change in the riverbed did not result in a change in the ownership of lands in questions.42 Of course, this does not mean that similar riverbed changes did not prompt lawsuits. With the systematic study of similar cases, probably a few hundred such cases could be uncovered. In all likelihood, they would point to the same process identified here, of course, providing a more solid foundation for the conclusions I am suggesting here.

Some of the examples discussed above, apart from the fact that they point to different practices than the late medieval cases, are exceptional from another perspective as well. Among the almost sixty cases discovered, there are only about a dozen that point to natural riverbed changes. In the majority (about three fourths) of the cases, at least some human intervention contributed to the formation of the new riverbeds. Most of the related disputes were centered on the nature of the riverbed modifications. In some cases, this was not as evident as it may seem. Probably due to the less regulated flow of the rivers in the Carpathian Basin, as well as elsewhere throughout Europe, the rivers changed their beds much more frequently than they did in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when major regulation works began in the Carpathian Basin. This is not only true for the smaller river branches but also in the case of the major rivers. Of course, in the case of smaller rivers and streams, shifts in the riverbeds were probably almost an everyday process, especially in the lowlands and the hilly areas of the Carpathian Basin. The question in many cases was not the change itself, but whether the river would find its way back to its old bed and would continue to flow in it or not. This is probably why Domitius Ulpianus’ Edict, which was included in Justinian’s Digest, forbade any intervention that would change the flow of a “public river” (as he and Roman authors usually refer to permanent waters) after a flood or under any other circumstance. This goes back to the assumption that rivers the course of which had shifted would eventually return to their original beds, presumably at the lowest water-level, which was generally reached in the summertime.43 This is why the Digest had different principles on the basis of which short-term and long-term modifications of riverbeds that also constituted estate borders were adjudicated.

Nonetheless, in many cases riverbeds were modified after earthworks which caused rivers to find a new bed. Sometimes these works were probably difficult to identify, as indicated by the legal evidence from a number of cases from medieval Hungary.44 In some cases, pieces of lands considerable in size were attached to other land in this way.45 In these cases, because of the major income that was foreseen from the lands in question, the river walls were torn down and channels were dug to divert the waters. Since many of the lawsuits were centered around the way in which a river’s flow had been modified, it is more or less obvious that the two were treated differently in the legal practice of the late medieval period. While the change of a river’s flow as a consequence of natural hydromorphological processes without direct human intervention went with a change in the ownership, in case the opposite–direct human intervention to a river’s flow–was demonstrated during court cases, it did not touch the ownership of the lands in question.

One further note should be made at this point. These alterations to the flow of rivers were probably not always intended as a way of gaining possession of someone else’s land. A case from the early fifteenth century indicates the extent to which some of the interventions to a river had unexpected and, more importantly, unwanted consequences, even for those who actually committed the intervention. In 1405, two sons of Pető of Gerse, János and Tamás, submitted a complaint regarding the construction of a new channel by the Sárvíz Stream between their Gerse and Sármelléke estates (now both part of Gersekarát) and the estates of the nobles of Telekes. The Pető sons had made the new channel, which was meant to provide water for a new mill they had built. The stream most probably had a small discharge, so the whole of its flow was diverted into this artificial channel. It is reasonable to assume that the stream was small, since the valley in question today lacks a permanent water flow and only fills with water after rainfall. The construction of mills by similar (similarly small) streams was not unique to pre-modern times. Later, these mills were often referred to in Hungarian as pokolidő (meaning “storm time”) or felhőt kiáltó (“sky squalling”) mills, as they only could function when the runoff of stream they were built on grew as a consequence of rainfalls.46 Because of the diversion of the water, the old riverbed, which from that time on probably received no water for most of the year, started to silt up. The nobles of Telekes used this change to their advantage. They started to consider the channel as the new riverbed and border between Telekes and the estates of the Petős, and they started to use the meadows between the two branches of the river as their own. Even if the new riverbed was meant to serve the interests of the Pető family, it resulted in the detachment of their estate and the occupation of these areas by the nobles of Telekes.47

Conclusions and Outlook

This paper was intended to provide an overview of the Hungarian legal customs under a special legal circumstance in the Middle Ages. Before any further conclusions it is worth noting that the problem raised by Bartolus in his treatise quoted in the introduction, marginal as it may seem at a first sight, probably had some actual practical relevance. Although the almost sixty cases identified by me in the course of my research and presented here are anything but comprehensive, they provide a sample which nonetheless allows us to identify different practices and customs. A systematic study of a more significant proportion of the available source material probably would have yielded similar results, although the formation of the legal customs in similar cases may be seen in a more nuanced manner. The sources discussed above nonetheless suggest that from the Angevin period on, the changes in riverbeds caused recurrent property disputes. While the cases from the fourteenth century do not show a clear pattern, from the fifteenth century on, in an overwhelming majority of the similar cases, the change of the riverbed went hand in hand with a change in the ownership of the connected piece of land. This suggests that by the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, there was a more or less settled customary law on the basis of which similar cases were adjudicated. In the meantime, the sources also point to the fact that most of these riverbed changes were not or not solely outcomes of natural hydromorphological processes, but rather were results of intended interventions in the flow of the rivers. Of course, in these cases the legal customs mentioned immediately above did not apply.

In many cases, however, it was not easy to identify these human interventions, especially because, as shown above, sometimes these processes were partly artificial and partly natural, and sometimes these changes were not intended by the persons who ordered earthwork or construction work by a river. Although none of the above mentioned cases suggest this per se, in many cases probably the change in the riverbed may have been caused indirectly by interventions at entirely different sections of the same water flow. The rather ambiguous nature of these changes was identified already in the Middle Ages, which is probably why Werbőczy attempted to change the existing legal customs in his Tripartitum. As noted, to some extent, he applied Roman law by building on some of the points of Justinian’s Digest. In contrast to what has been suggested in the earlier secondary literature, however, he did not fully accept the Roman legal tradition, but modified it to clarify similar situations as much as possible. By stabilizing the borders of estates even in cases involving changes to the bed of the border river, he probably thought he had put an end to similar disputes.

Although the focus of this paper is not the Early Modern period, it is certainly worth considering the relevance of the conclusions I have drawn to similar legal procedures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, the collection in this case could hardly be considered comprehensive, unlike in the case of the Middle Ages, so it would be foolhardy to generalize. However, at least one thing is clear from the few sources on which the existing literature rests. First, in the period of roughly 100 years following the compilation of the Tripartitum and the fall of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary to the Ottoman Turks, the legal principles put down in writing by Werbőczy were not systematically applied. Rather, the consuetudo was in effect.48 Nonetheless, almost 150 years after the completion of Werbőczy’s Tripartitum, his principles were accepted as law. In 1655, Act 81 took the relevant passages of the Tripartitum: “With regard to lands which by [flash] floods or floods that happened or happen slowly were carried away from a land and were attached to another, Book 1 Title 87 of the Tripartitum has to be applied.”49 Although by this time many points of the Tripartitum had become standard points of reference and many of them were also accepted as laws of the Kingdom of Hungary, the practice in the problem discussed above still was not consistently applied. There is a source from the year in which Act 81 was accepted by King Ferdinand III which points to an unresolved problem. In December 1655, the provisor of one of the most influential noble families in Transdanubia, the Batthyány family, was involved in a lawsuit in Dobersdorf (part of present day Rudersdorf) which concerned pieces of land by the Lafnitz River. In the letter, it was Magdolna, the sister of Ádám Batthyány (1610–1659), the landlord of the estate complex of the family informed him of this property dispute. According to the letter, the family insisted that, even if the river changed its bed, the lands would not change hands.50 The opposing party, however, took a different position. This may be due to the fact that the Lafnitz River in this section was the border between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg duchies,51 so the legal practice was different. In such cases, there was no reason to give a priority to the Hungarian legal system. Nonetheless, it was probably in this period that similar lawsuits almost entirely disappeared from Hungarian court cases.

Bibliography

Archival sources

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár [The National Archives of Hungary] (MNL)

Országos Levéltár, Budapest, Hungary [The State Archive] (OL)

Magánlevéltárak [Private Archives] (P)

A herceg Batthyány család levéltára [The Princely Batthyány Family
Archive]

Missiles (P 1314)

Mohács előtti gyűjtemény [Collection of Documents from the Period before
the Battle of Mohács (1526)] (Q)

Diplomatikai levéltár [The Archive of Diplomatics] (DL)

Térképtár [Map collection] (S)

Új szerzeményű térképek [Newly acquired maps] (73)

Fényképgyűjtemény [The Photographic Collection] (U)

Mohács előtti fényképgyűjtemény [The Photographic Collection of Documents from the Period before the Battle of Mohács (1526)] (DF)

 

Printed sources and secondary literature

1608–1657. évi törvényczikkek / Corpus Juris Hungarici 1608–1657, edited by Dezső Márkus. Budapest: Franklin, 1900.

Anjou-kori oklevéltár. Documenta res Hungaricas tempore regum Andegavensium illustrantia, edited by Gyula Kristó et al., 48 vols. Budapest–Szeged: JATE–Csongrád Megyei Levéltár, 1990–2018.

Anjoukori okmánytár. Codex diplomaticus Hungaricus Andegavensis, edited by Imre Nagy, and Gyula Tasnádi Nagy, 7 vols. Budapest: MTA, 1878–1920.

Anon. “Vízimalmok” [Watermills]. In Magyar néprajz III. (Anyagi kultúra 2.) [Hungarian ethnography, III. Material culture, 2], edited by Ottó Domonkos. Budapest: Akadémiai, 1991.

Augustyn, Beatrys. “De evolutie van het duinecosysteem in Vlaanderen in de Middeleeuwen: antropogene factoren versus zeespiegelrijzingstheorie” [Evolution of the dune ecosystem in Flanders during the Middle Ages: anthropogenic factors versus sea level change theory]. Historisch-Geografisch Tijdschrift’ 13, no. 1 (1995): 9–19.

Augustyn, Beatrys. “Evolution of the dune ecosystem in Flanders during the Middle Ages: Anthropogenic Factors Versus Sea Level Change Theory.” Accessed on April 8, 2018: http://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/100070.pdf

Bartolus de Saxoferrato. Tractatus de fluminibus seu Tyberiadis, edited by Guido Astuti. Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1964

Bartolus de Saxoferrato. Tractatus de fluminibus seu Tyberiadis. Bononiae, 1576.

Carozza, Jean-Michel et al. “Lower Mediterranean Plain Accelerated Evolution during the Little Ice Age: Geoarchaeological insight in the Tech Basin (Roussillon, Gulf of Lion, Western Mediterranean).” Quaternary International 266 (2011): 94–104.

Cavallar, Osvaldo. “River of Law: Bartolus’s Tiberiadis (De alluvione).” In A Renaissance of Conflicts: Visions and Revisions of Law and Society in Italy and Spain, edited by J. A. Marino, and T. Kuehn, 31–129. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2004.

Degré, Alajos. Magyar halászati jog a középkorban [Fishing rights in medieval Hungary]. A Budapesti Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetem Jogtörténeti Szemináriuma Illés József Szemináriumának kiadványai 5. Budapest: Sárkány Nyomda, 1939.

Dell’Adami Rezső. Az anyagi magyar magánjog codifikátiója. I. A nemzeti eredet problémája. Külön lenyomat a “Magyar Themis”-ből [Codification of the Hungarian common law I. The problem of the national origin. Separatum from the Magyar Themis]. Budapest: Eggenberger, 1877.

Dreska, Gábor. “A pannonhalmi konvent hiteleshelyének működése a Zsigmond-korban: A pannonhalmi konvent hiteleshelyének 1387 és 1437 között készült kiadványai a Pannonhalmi Bencés Főapátsági Levéltárban” [The functioning of the place of authentication of the abbey of Pannonhalma in the Sigismundian period: the documents issued by the place of authentication of Pannonhalma between 1387 and 1437 in the Archive of the Benedictine Archabbey of Pannonhalma]. Levéltári Közlemények 68 (1997): 3–61.

Engels, Johannes. “Der verklagte Flußgott Mäander.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 51, no. 2 (2002): 192–205.

Fekete Nagy Antal. “A Petróczy levéltár középkori oklevelei: első közlemény” [Medieval documents of the Petróczy Archive. Part I]. Levéltári Közlemények 8 (1930): 190–264.

Frova, Carla. “Le traité de fluminibus de Bartolo da Sassoferrato (1355).” Médiévales 18 (1999): 81–89.

Hohensinner, Severin et al. “Changes in Water and Land: the Reconstructed Viennese Riverscape from 1500 to the Present.” Water History 5 (2013): 145–72.

Hohensinner, Severin et al. “Two Steps Back, One Step Forward: Reconstructing the Dynamic Danube Riverscape under Human Influence in Vienna.” Water History 5 (2013): 121–43.

Jakó, Zsigmond. A kolozsmonostori konvent jegyzőkönyvei, 1289–1556. I. kötet. 1289–1484 [The protocol of the abbey of Kolozsmonostor]. Magyar Országos Levéltár kiadványai, II. Forráskiadványok 17. Budapest: Magyar Országos Levéltár, 1990.

K. Németh András. “Vizek és vízgazdálkodása középkori Tolna megyében. III. Vízrajz” [Waters and water management in medieval Tolna County, III. Hydrography]. A Wosinsky Mór Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 37 (2015): 7–39.

K. Németh András. “Vizek és vízgazdálkodás a középkori Tolna megyében. II. Halászat” [Waters and water management in medieval Tolna County, II. Fishing]. A Wosinsky Mór Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 36 (2014): 223–51.

Kádas, István. “Sárosi ‘reform’ Miklós fia Miklós ispánsága idején (1374–1380)?” [‘Reform’ in Sáros County during the countship of Miklós son of Miklós (1374–1380)?] In Micae mediaevales V. Fiatal történészek dolgozatai a középkori Magyarországról és Európáról [Studies of young historians on medieval Hungary and Europe]. ELTE BTK Történelemtudományok Doktori Iskola Tanulmányok – Konferenciák 9. Edited by Laura Fábián et al., 127–44. Budapest: ELTE BTK Történelemtudományok Doktori Iskola, 2016.

Kiss, Andrea. “Floods and Long-Term Water-Level Changes in Medieval Hungary.” PhD diss., Central European University, 2012.

Kiss, Andrea. Floods and Long-Term Water-Level Changes in Medieval Hungary, Springer Water. Cham: Springer, 2019.

Kleinhans, Maarten G., Henk J. T. Weerts, and Kim M. Cohen. “Avulsion in Action: Reconstruction and Modelling Sedimentation Pace and Upstream Flood Water Levels Following a Medieval Tidal-River Diversion Catastrophe (Biesbosch, The Netherlands, 1421–1750 AD).” Geomorphology 118 (2010): 65–79.

Kovács, Györgyi, and Csilla Zatykó, eds. “Per sylvam et per lacus nimios” – The Medieval and Ottoman Period in Southern Transdanubia, Southwest Hungary: the Contribution of the Natural Sciences. Budapest: MTA BTK Régészeti Intézet, 2016.

Muratori, Lodovico Antonio. Annali d’Italia, dal principio dell’era volgare fino all’anno MDCCL, Vol. III/2. Rome: Stamperia degli eredi Barbiellini, 1752.

Olexik, Ferenc. “Középkori levéltártörténeti adatok” [Medieval archival history data]. Levéltári Közlemények 13 (1935): 266–74.

Ortvay, Tivadar and Frigyes Pesty. Oklevelek Temesvármegye és Temesvár város történetéhez. I. 1183–1430 [Documents to the history of Temes County and the town of Timişoara]. Temesvármegye és Temesvár város története 4. Pozsony: Eder István Könyvnyomdája, 1896.

Paulus [Paul the Deacon]. Historia Langobardorum. In Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum 48, edited by Georg Waitz, 49–242. Hannover: Hahn, 1878.

Provansal, Mireille, Georges Pichard, and Edward J. Anthony. “Geomorphic Changes in the Rhône Delta During the LIA: Input from the Analysis of Ancient Maps.” In Sediment Fluxes in Coastal Areas. Coastal Research Library 10, edited by Mohamed Maanan, and Marc Robin, 47–72. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2015.

Pišút, Peter, and Gábor Timár. “A csallóközi (Žitný ostrov) Duna-szakasz folyódinamikai változásai a középkortól napjainkig” [Hydrological changes of the Danube in the area of the Žitný ostrov from the Middle Ages to the present]. In Környezettörténet: Az utóbbi 500 év környezeti eseményei történeti és természettudományi források tükrében [Environmental history: Environmental events of the past 500 years in light of historical and scientific sources], edited by Miklós Kázmér, 59–74. Budapest: Hantken Kiadó, 2009.

Pišút, Peter. “Príspevok historických máp k rekonštrukcii vývoja koryta Dunaja na uhorsko-rakúskej hranici (16.–19. storočie)” [Contribution of historical maps to the reconstruction of the Danube channel evolution near the old Hungarian–Austrian Border (16th–19th centuries)]. In Historické mapy [Historical maps], edited by Ján Pravda, 167–81. Bratislava: Kartografická spoločnosť SR– Geografický ústav SAV, 2005.

du Plessis, Paul Jacobus. “An Annotated Translation of Bartolus’ Tractatus de Fluminibus seu Tyberiadis (Book 1).” MA Thesis, Potchefstroomse Universiteit, 1999.

Sachsenspiegel Landrecht. In Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Fontes iuris Germanici antiqui, Nova series Fontes iuris N.S. 1.1, edited by Karl August von Eckhardt. 2nd ed. Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1955.

Sax, Joseph L. “The Accretion/Avulsion Puzzle: Its Past Revealed, Its Future Proposed.” Tulane Environmental Law Journal 23 (2010): 305–67.

Soens, Tim. “The origins of the Western Scheldt: Environmental Transformation, Storm Surges and Human Agency in the Flemish Coastal Plain (1250–1600).” In Landscapes or seascapes? The history of the Coastal Environment in the North Sea Area Reconsidered. Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area 13, edited by Erik Thoen et al., 287–312. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2013.

Sonnlechner, Christoph, Severin Hohensinner, and Gertrud Haidvogl. “Floods, fights and a fluid river: the Viennese Danube in the sixteenth century.” Water History 5 (2013):173–94.

Squatriti, Paolo. “The Floods of 589 and Climate Change at the Beginning of the Middle Ages: An Italian Microhistory.” Speculum 85 (2010): 799–826.

Szabó, Péter. “Medieval Trees and Modern Ecology: How to Handle Written Sources.” Medium Aevum Quotidianum 46 (2002): 7–25.

Szabó, Péter. “Sources for the Historian of Medieval Woodland.” In People and Nature in Historical Perspective. CEU Medievalia 5, edited by József Laszlovszky, and Péter Szabó, 265–88. Budapest: CEU Press and Archaeolingua, 2003.

Szádeczky Lajos. Székely oklevéltár. V. kötet (1296–1603) [Székely cartulary, V]. Kolozsvár: Ajtai K. Albert Könyvnyomdája, 1896.

Székely, Balázs. “Rediscovering the Old Treasures of Cartography – What an Almost 500-year-old Map Can Tell to a Geoscientist.” Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica Hungarica 44 (2009): 3–16.

Takáts, Sándor. Művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok a XVI–XVII. századból [Studies in the intellectual history of the 16th – 17th centuries], edited by Kálmán Benda. Budapest: Gondolat, 1961.

The Digest of Justinian, eds. Alan Watson, Theodor Mommsen, and Paul Krueger. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.

Thoen, Erik et al., eds., Landscapes or seascapes? The history of the Coastal Environment in the North Sea Area Reconsidered, Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area 13. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2013.

Timár, Gábor, Pál Sümegi, and Ferenc Horváth. “Late Quaternary Dynamics of the Tisza River: Evidence of Climatic and Tectonic Controls.” Tectonophysics 410 (2005) 97–110.

Törnqvist, Torbjörn E. “Middle and Late Holocene Avulsion History of the River Rhine (Rhine-Meuse delta, Netherlands).” Geology 22, no. 8 (1994): 711–14.

Tóth Péter. Vas vármegye közgyűlési jegyzőkönyveinek regesztái I. 1595–1600 [Summaries of the minutes of the gatherings of Vas County, I], Vas megyei levéltári füzetek 2. Szombathely: Vas Megyei Levéltár, N. d.

Tringli, István. “A magyar szokásjog a malomépítésről” [Hungarian customary law of mill construction]. In Tanulmányok a középkorról [Studies on medieval history]. Analecta Medievalia 1, ed. Tibor Neumann, 251–67. Budapest – Piliscsaba: PPKE, 2001.

Trusen, Winfried. “Insula in flumine nata: Ein kanonischer Zivilprozeß aus den Jahren 1357 bis 1363/64 um eine Insel im Mittelrhein.” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung 68 (1982): 294–338.

Vadas, András. “Some Remarks on the Legal Regulations and Practice of Mill Constructions in Medieval Hungary.” In Gebrauch und Symbolik des Wassers in der mittelalterlichen Kultur. Das Mittelalter. Beihefte 4, edited by Gerlinde Huber Rebenich, Christian Rohr, and Michael Stolz, 290–314. Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.

Vadas, András. “Technologies on the Road between West and East: The Spread of Water Mills and the Christianization of East Central Europe.” In The Medieval Networks in East Central Europe: Commerce, Contacts, Communication, edited by Balázs Nagy, Felicitas Schmieder, and András Vadas, 123–38. New York–Abdington: Routledge, 2018.

Vadas, András. “Terminológiai és tartalmi kérdések a középkori malomhelyek körül” [Questions of the terminology and the meaning of medieval mill places]. Történelmi Szemle 57 (2015): 619–48.

Vadas, András. Körmend és a vizek: Egy település és környezete a kora újkorban [Körmend and the waters: A settlement and its environment in the Early Modern period]. ELTE BTK Történettudományok Doktori Iskola. Tanulmányok – Konferenciák 5. Budapest: ELTE Történelemtudományok Doktori Iskola, 2013.

Viczián, István. “Geomorphological Research in and Around Berzence, on the Border of the Drava Valley and Inner Somogy Microregion, Hungary.” In “Per sylvam et per lacus nimios” – The Medieval and Ottoman Period in Southern Transdanubia, Southwest Hungary: The Contribution of the Natural Sciences, edited by Gyöngyi Kovács, and Csilla Zatykó, 75–91. Budapest: MTA BTK Régészeti Intézet, 2016.

Vörös, Károly. “Ein Grenzkonflikt zwischen Steiermark und Ungarn im Jahre 1742.” Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereines für Steiermark 82 (1991): 195–97.

Walther, Helmut. “Wasser in Stadt und Contado: Perugias Sorge um Wasser und der Flußtraktat Tyberiadis des Perusiner Juristen Bartolus von Sassoferrato.” In Mensch und Natur im Mittelalter, Bd. II. Miscellanea Mediaevalia 21, edited by Albert Zimmermann, and Andreas Speer, 882–97. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991.

Werbőczy, Stephen. The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary in Three Parts (The Tripartitum). Decreta Regni Mediaevalis Hungariae 5, edited by János M. Bak, Péter Banyó, and Martyn Rady. Budapest–Idyllwild: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 2005.

Zsigmondkori oklevéltár [Cartulary of the age of Sigismund]. A Magyar Országos Levéltár kiadványai, II. Forráskiadványok, 1, 3–4, 22, 25, 27, 32, 37, 39, 41, 43, 49, 52, 55, edited by Elemér Mályusz et al., 13 vols. Budapest: Akadémiai–MOL, 1951–2017.

Zsoldos, Attila. “Hűséges oligarchák” [Faithful oligarchs]. In A történettudomány szolgálatában: Tanulmányok a 70 éves Gecsényi Lajos tiszteletére [In the service of historical research. Studies in honor of Lajos Gecsényi on his 70th birthday], edited by Magdolna Baráth, and Antal Molnár, 347–54. Budapest–Győr: Magyar Országos Levéltár Győr-Moson-Sopron Megye Győri Levéltára, 2012.

Zsoldos, Attila. A Druget-tartomány története, 1315–1342 [The history of the Druget lands, 1315–1342]. Magyar történelmi emlékek – Értekezések. Budapest: MTA Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont Történettudományi Intézet, 2017.

1 du Plessis, An Annotated Translation, 35. (I consulted the translation, but corrected it at certain places.) For the best edition of the prologue, see Cavallar, “River of law,” 84–116. For the printed editions of the work, see Bartolus Tractatus [1576] and Bartolus, Tractatus [1960] (with the reprint of the 1576 edition of the text).

2 For the political context of the writing, see Walther, “Wasser in Stadt und Contado,” 889–90. See also: Cavallar, “River of law.”

3 “Et circa multa dubia que de facto ocurrerant et alia ego ipse ex aspectu fluminis excibatam, quid iuris esset, cepi aliqualiter intueri, non tamen credens ultra procedere, ne recerationem propter quam accesseram inpedirem” Cavallar, “River of Law,” 84 (Appendix).

4 Cf. Cavallar, “River of law.”

5 Although the problem of emerging islands also appear in Hungarian legal documents. E.g. Anjoukori okmánytár, vol. 1. 94– 95 no. 87; ibid., vol. 4. 10–12 no. 10. See also the case referred to in note 40.

6 Sax, “The Accretion/Avulsion Puzzle,” 305–67.

7 Augustyn, “Evolution of the dune ecosystem,” and Augustyn, “De evolutie van het duinecosysteem.”

8 For Muratori’s reading of the 589 floods, see idem, Annali d’Italia, 339. On this, see Squatriti, “The Floods of 589,” 801.

9 “Eo tempore fuit aquae diluvium in finibus Veneciarum et Liguriae seu ceteris regionibu Italiae, quale post Noe tempore creditur non fuisse. Factae sunt lavinae possessionum seu villarum hominumque pariter et animantium magnus interitus. Destructa sunt itinera, dissipatae viae, tantum tuncque Atesis fluvius excrevit, ut circa basilicam Beati Zenonis martyris, quae extra Veronensis urbis muros sita est, usque ad superiores fenestras aqua pertingeret [...] Urbis quoque eiusdem Veronensis muri ex parte aliqua eadem sunt inundatione subruti.” Paulus Diaconus, Historia Langobardorum, III. 23. For its edition, see Paulus, Historia Langobardorum, 127–28.

10 Until now the most detailed treatise of the problem is: Squatriti, “The Floods of 589,” 799–826. With a thorough criticism of the earlier secondary literature.

11 Kleinhans, Weerts, and Cohen, “Avulsion in action.” See also: Törnqvist, “Middle and late Holocene avulsion,” 711–14, Soens, “The origins of the Western Scheldt,” and Trusen, “Insula in flumine nata.”

12 Provansal, Pichard, and Anthony, “Geomorphic Changes in the Rhône Delta,” and Carozza et al., “Lower Mediterranean plain accelerated.”

13 Thoen et al., Landscapes or seascapes.

14 Sonnlechner, Hohensinner, and Haidvogl, “Floods, fights and a fluid river,” and Hohensinner et al. “Changes in water and land.” See also: Hohensinner et al., “Two steps back, one step forward: reconstructing the dynamic Danube.”

15 E.g. Pišút, “Príspevok historických,” 167–81; Pišút and Timár, “A csallóközi (Žitný ostrov) Duna-szakasz,” 59–74 or Székely, “Rediscovering the old treasures of cartography.”

16 Vadas, Körmend és a vizek, 22 and 67.

17 E.g. Timár, Sümegi, and Horváth, “Quaternary Dynamics of the Tisza River.”

18 Kovács and Zatykó, “Per sylvam et per lacus nimios,” esp. the contribution by István Viczián, “Geomorphological research in and around Berzence.”

19 See more recently the contributions of Bence Péterfi and Renáta Skorka to the present issue of the Hungarian Historical Review.

20 On the source type, see Szabó, “Sources for the Historian of Medieval Woodland,” 268–71. On the proportion of perambulation documents in the surviving documentary evidence, see: Szabó, “Medieval Trees and Modern Ecology,” 12–17.

21 E.g. Sax, “The Accretion.”

22 MNL OL DL 68 894 (September 14, 1349) and 68 895 (July 5, 1349 and October 5, 1349).

23 MNL OL DL 68 795 (April 10, 1324). Cf. Zsoldos, “Hűséges oligarchák,” 347.

24 On the Drugets, see Zsoldos, A Druget-tartomány.

25 On the noble judges of Sáros County, see Kádas, “Sárosi ‘reform’Miklós fia Miklós ispánsága idején,” 127–44. For Tivadar ibid., 135.

26 MNL OL DL 68 895. (For a summary, see Anjou-kori oklevéltár, vol. 33. 255 no. 505), MNL OL DL 68 894. (For a summary, see Anjou-kori oklevéltár, vol. 33. 335–36 no. 684), and MNL OL DL 68 895 (for a summary, see: Anjou-kori oklevéltár, vol. 33. 364 no. 745).

27 On similar cases, and the role of floods in that, see Kiss, Floods and Long-Term Water-Level Changes.

28 MNL OL DL 68 916 and MNL OL DL 68 917.

29 MNL OL DL 68 950 (for a summary, see Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 2/1. 641 no. 5091).

30 Tringli, “A magyar szokásjog a malomépítésről,” and Vadas, “Terminológiai és tartalmi kérdések.” The latter in a shortened English version is available in Vadas, “Some Remarks.”

31 Werbőczy, The Customary Law, I/87 (168–70).

32 Dell’Adami, Az anyagi magyar magánjog.

33 Degré, Magyar halászati jog a középkorban, and Tringli, “A magyar szokásjog a malomépítésről.”

34 See e.g. Engels, “Der verklagte,” 204, and Sax, “The Accretion/Avulsion Puzzle.”

35 “Svat so dat water afschevet deme lande, dat hevet die verloren des dat lant is. Brict it aver enen nien agang, dar mede ne verlüset he sines landes nicht. § 3. Svelk werder sik ok irhevet binnen enem vliete, svelkeme stade he nar is, to dem stade hort die werder; is he vormiddes, he hort to beiden staden. Dat selve dat die agang, of he verdroget.” Sachsenspiegel Landrecht II. 56.

36 Dig. 41.1.7.2.

37 MNL OL DF 249 510. (For a summary, see Anjou-kori oklevéltár, vol. 22. 12–13 no. 5.)

38 MNL OL DL 102 905. (September 4, 1339) For the edition of an incomplete version of the document (MNL OL DL 58 505): Anjoukori okmánytár, vol. 3. 597–98 no. 394. For a summary, see Anjou-kori oklevéltár, vol. 23. 250–51 no. 529. See on this case in the context of floods Kiss, Floods and Long-Term Water-Level Changes, 245–46.

39 MNL OL DL 11 742. (January 2, 1340). For a summary, see Anjou-kori oklevéltár, vol. 24. 9 no. 2.

40 MNL OL S 73. no. 102. (Pál Szattmári, Borsod megyebeli Ónod m. város és határának szabályozás előtti térképe, 1852 [The map of the town of Ónod and its borders before the water regulations, 1852]). Accessed on December 14, 2018: https://maps.hungaricana.hu/hu/MOLTerkeptar/11395/

41 “Autem dominum Nicolaum episcopum Agriensem pro indebita earumdem particularum terrarum litigiosarum requisicione in emenda estimacionis earumdem, scilicet in predictis tredecim marcis contra eundem Stephanum filium Pauli commisimus sentencialiter aggravari.” MNL OL DL 3932. (September 14, 1347), Edited (with parts left out): Anjoukori okmánytár, vol. 5. 118–20 no. 55; for a summary, see Anjou-kori oklevéltár, vol. 31. 445–47 no. 862. See on the document, Kiss, Floods and Long-Term Water-Level Changes, 259–60.

42 MNL OL DL 98 381. (For a summary, see Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 8. 251–52 no. 859). See Kiss, Floods and Long-Term Water-Level Changes, 293.

43 Dig. 43. 12, 13. 1–13, 15. For an English translation, see The Digest of Justinian.

44 E.g. MNL OL DL 52 420, 91 893 (For a summary, see Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 2. 186 no. 61), DF 207 457. (For a summary, see Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 1. 15 no. 138; edited in: Dreska, “A pannonhalmi konvent hiteleshelyének,” 13), DL 53 871 (For a summary, see Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 5. 191 no. 571, edited: Ortvay and Pesty, Oklevelek Temesvármegye és Temesvárváros történetéhez, 511–12), 53 984. (For a summary, see Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 6. 380 no. 1377, edited: Ortvay and Pesty, Oklevelek Temesvármegye és Temesvárváros történetéhez, 543), DL 53 990 (Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 6. 405 no. 1499), 66 938, 16 498, 39 456 (for a summary, see Fekete Nagy, “A Petróczy levéltár középkori oklevelei,” 261–62 no. 202), 36 393 (here: p. 87–88 no. 2. For a summary, see Jakó, A kolozsmonostori konvent, vol. 1. 717–18 no. 2022), 17 372. (Olexik, “Középkori levéltártörténeti adatok,” 270–71 no. 9), 65 632, 83 932, 95 726, 106 744 (K. Németh, “Vizek és vízgazdálkodás, I,” 7 and idem, “Vizek és vízgazdálkodás, II,” 9. (erroneously dating the document to 1505), 29 981, and 63 037.

45 E.g. MNL OL DL 30 554.

46 Anon., “Vízimalmok,” 169–87. Available online: http://mek.niif.hu/02100/02152/html/03/23.html (accessed on: May 16, 2019) and Takáts, Művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok, 177, 350.

47 MNL OL DL 92 239 (for a summary, see Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 2/1. 446 no. 3726).

48 For legal practice that was not in accordance with the Tripartitum, see e.g. Szádeczky, Székely oklevéltár, 5. 61–63 no. 935 and 63–65 no. 936 (Cf. Degré, Magyar halászati jog, 138 and Tringli, “A magyar szokásjog,” 262 [1547]). See also Tóth, Vas vármegye közgyűlési, 243 no. 719 (November 23, 1600)

49 “In facto territoriorum, per exundationem; vel sensim factam aut fiendam alluviem aquarum, ab uno territorio avulsorum, et alteri adjectorum; observetur tit. 87. partis 1. §.” 1608–1657. évi törvényczikkek, 632.

50 “S egiebirantis az dobrai főldeket az ide valo hatarhoz szakasztotta az Raba visza, de attal ugian nem idegenithetik el Dobrától” (“The Rába did attach the lands in the borders of Dobra to our borders but it does not mean that they could be alienated from Dobra”) The letter of Magdolna Batthyány to Ádám Batthyány, MNL OL P 1314 no. 5104. (December 30, 1655).

51 See the contributions of Bence Péterfi and Renáta Skorka in the present issue. See also: Vörös, “Ein Grenzkonflikt zwischen Steiermark und Ungarn.”

* This paper was supported by the Bolyai János Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. I am thankful for the suggestions of Bence Péterfi, Katalin Szende and István Tringli made at an earlier version of the present paper.

2019_2_Filipović

Volume 8 Issue 2 CONTENTS

pdfColluding with the Infidel: The Alliance between Ladislaus of Naples and the Turks*

Emir O. Filipović
University of Sarajevo
emirofilipovic
@gmail.com

In October 1392, King Ladislaus of Naples (1386–1414) sent letters and an embassy to the court of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid (1389–1402) offering to establish a pact against their common enemy, King Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387–1437). According to the “indecent proposal,” this “unholy alliance” was supposed to be sealed and strengthened by a marriage between King Ladislaus and an unnamed daughter of the sultan. Though the wedding never took place, messengers were exchanged and a tactical pact did materialize. It was manifested through military cooperation between Ladislaus’ Balkan supporters and the Ottoman marcher lords, who undertook joint attacks against the subjects of King Sigismund and their territories. Although mentioned briefly in passing, this incredible episode and the resulting alliance have never before been analyzed in depth by historians. Attempting to shed some light on the topic in general, this article proposes to examine the available narrative and diplomatic sources, assess the marriage policy of the Ottoman sultans as a diplomatic tool in the achievement of their strategic goals, and the perceived outrage that news of the potential marriage caused among the adversaries of King Ladislaus. In addition to studying the language of the letters, which extended beyond subtle courtesy, the essay will also explore the practical effects and consequences of the collusion between Ladislaus and the Turks for the overall political situation in the Balkans during the last decade of the fourteenth century and first decade of the fifteenth.

Keywords: King Ladislaus of Naples, King Sigismund of Luxembourg, Sultan Bayezid, Stephen Lackfi, John Horváti, Hrvoje Vukčić, Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Naples, Ottoman Empire, Kingdom of Bosnia

Introduction

The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines collusion as a “secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose” and offers the following example of the word being used in a sentence: “acting in collusion with the enemy.” Basically, collusion can be interpreted as an understanding between two or more parties who come together secretly in order to achieve a common objective, usually to the detriment of a third side. Its synonyms include conspiracy, collaboration, and intrigue, while the term itself comes from the Latin colludere (col- together, -ludere to play), meaning to have a secret agreement. This paper will treat one such instance of blatant collusion between King Ladislaus of Naples and the Ottoman Turks, who were at the time perceived as infidels and enemies of Christendom. The “impious alliance” itself was directed against their mutual enemy, King Sigismund of Luxembourg, and it was supposed to bring long-term benefits to both sides.1

Historians have known that this “unlikely” pact existed, and they have written about it, but the whole episode has been treated almost as a curious footnote in the busy reign of the somewhat controversial and ruthless Italian king. Born in 1377, Ladislaus was only properly King of Naples, a keen candidate for the crowns of Jerusalem and Sicily, and rather more notoriously for those of Hungary, Dalmatia, and Croatia. He inherited these titles and claims from his father, Charles of Durazzo, King of Naples and Hungary, who died as a consequence of a brutal assassination in Buda in February of 1386. After his death, the nine-year old Ladislaus ruled in Italy under the regency of his mother Margaret, while the Kingdom of Hungary became embroiled in a deep and intense succession crisis that eventually polarized the whole country into two mutually conflicted camps.2 Confined to his Italian possessions and unable to achieve effective control of Naples, as the city was held at the time by his opponent and distant cousin King Louis II (1389–1399), the underage Ladislaus could not play any part in the struggle for the Hungarian throne, which came to be held by King Sigismund of Luxembourg.3 It was only after he was officially recognized as King of Naples in 1390 by Pope Boniface IX, and after the death of Bosnian King Tvrtko (1353–1391) in March of the following year, that Ladislaus was able to pursue a more aggressive stance towards the Balkans and stake a more forceful claim for the Holy Crown of St. Stephen. Therefore, in October 1392, he took concrete diplomatic steps to create an overseas network which could help him achieve his goals, and these initiatives ultimately resulted in contacts with the Ottoman court.

As Ladislaus was the last male of the senior Angevin line (which became extinct with his death in 1414) and also quite an active political figure, a lot has been written about him and the various aspects of his rule, including the projections he had for an alliance with the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid. His principal biographers, including Gyula Schönherr,4 István Miskolczy,5 and Alessandro Cutolo,6 have always incorporated this story in their works. Also, authors who wrote about the Angevins of Naples in general, such as Bálint Hóman and Émile Léonard, have likewise not failed to indicate that Ladislaus proposed a treaty with the Ottoman Sultan.7 Furthermore, this fact was introduced to Croatian historiography via the early works of Franjo Rački, Vjekoslav Klaić, and Ferdo Šišić,8 although apart from merely mentioning it, none of the named authors paid too much attention to this cooperation or to its deeper implications. On the other hand, the whole issue is conspicuously absent from the books and papers written by historians of the Ottoman Empire, who primarily dealt with the contemporary reign of Sultan Bayezid or the more wide-ranging topic of relations between the Ottomans and Europe, such as, for instance, Colin Imber and Rhoads Murphey, to name just two of the more prominent authors.9 Apart from Halil İnalcık and Elizabeth Zachariadou, who only comment upon this incident in passing,10 they all omit to mention the existence of any interactions between the courts of Ladislaus and Bayezid, probably not deeming any such interactions too significant in the overall eventful reign of the dynamic Ottoman ruler.

By the last decade of the fourteenth century, the Ottomans had established relatively close relations with several Italian princes and states, most notably with Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan and the Republic of Genoa.11 Nevertheless, even though it has been underrepresented in historical works, the alliance with Ladislaus of Naples still constitutes a prime example of early cooperation between the Ottomans and the Catholic rulers of the West. Therefore, this study proposes to investigate the reasons why Ladislaus colluded with the Ottomans, how his decision to do so impacted the development of political and military events in Southeast Europe at the time, whether the idea of an alliance with the Turks came from Ladislaus himself or from his Balkan allies, and, last but not least, what was the ultimate outcome of this political adventure.

Sigismund’s Accusations

Most of the historians who touched upon the interactions between Ladislaus and Bayezid did so on the basis of accounts given by two famous fifteenth-century historians of Hungary who described the Angevin–Ottoman conspiracy in some detail: János Thuróczy († 1489) and Antonio Bonfini († 1503). In recounting the fate of Voivode Stephen Lackfi, one of the major insurgents against King Sigismund, Thuróczy notes how, after the disaster at Nicopolis in 1396, while Sigismund was still sailing home, this Stephen committed a particularly devious crime (in addition to the other appalling villainies he had treacherously performed). Namely, according to this report, he had clandestinely dispatched messengers to Bayezid, ruler of the Turks, and had given his word to arrange a marriage between Bayezid’s daughter and King Ladislaus on condition that the sultan supplied him with military assistance against King Sigismund. And so it came to pass that he introduced large hordes of Turks into the regions of Hungary between the Sava and Drava Rivers, where they pillaged and plundered. Thuróczy then writes that this occasion was the first hostile encroachment of Turks into Hungary, and he says that the Turks caused considerable destruction in the towns of Syrmia, which were even in his time (almost a century later) still bereft of their buildings, testifying to the extent of the damage.12

Bonfini says almost exactly the same thing,13 and the fact that these two fragments are so similar is not surprising, since Bonfini relied heavily on Thuróczy’s chronicle, and comparisons between their respective works have been extensively analyzed in historiography.14 Both authors were court historians who had access to the royal archives, so the information they provide seems to have been based on real events and was probably not completely invented. Fortunately, it is not too difficult to identify the source of their accounts in the contemporary diplomatic documents issued by the chancery of King Sigismund.

One such charter, dated to March 1397, confirms King Sigismund’s decision to grant the Kanizsai the estates that had previously belonged to the heirs of Lack, also known as Lackfi (or Lackovići in Croatian), because certain disgraced members of this family, such as Voivode Stephen of Csáktornya and his nephews, Stephen of Simontornya and Andrew of Döbrököz, had conspired against Sigismund in the interest of Ladislaus. In the document, the king refers to them as “our notorious infidels,” who plotted against him as “cunning and deceitful serpents,” wanting to eliminate, exclude and exterminate him and his subjects from their kingdoms. Sigismund then says that both Stephens, descendants of the aforementioned Lack, obtained and procured letters from Ladislaus, the “perfidious” King of Apulia, confirming them both as his general deputies in these parts. And to please him as well as to subdue more easily Sigismund’s subjects, they had messengers sent in his name to Bayezid, Emperor of the Turks, with the aim of arranging a matrimonial bond between Ladislaus and the sultan’s daughter so that, thus joined, they could immediately be crowned with the sacred crown of the Kingdom. Furthermore, Sigismund’s charter declares that in order to achieve this, they brought cohorts of Turks who attacked the kingdom between the Drava and Sava Rivers, causing great disruption, killings, and abductions and enslaving many individuals of both sexes.15

Word by word, almost the same text is reproduced in a charter issued in Buda in December 1398, when King Sigismund confiscated the estate of Szentbertalan from Stephen called Ördög, or Vrag, meaning Devil, who was a well-known rebel against Sigismund’s authority and an accomplice in the treachery conducted by the Lackfi. The seized land was then given to the loyal members of the Kanizsai family.16

An identical narrative appears once again in a document issued in Trnava in January 1401, confirming that King Sigismund confiscated the castle of Rezi in the county of Zala, which had belonged to the Lackfi and had given it to Eberhard, the Bishop of Zagreb, and his kin.17 And finally, the same account is also described in a charter issued in May 1408, when Sigismund gave Stephen Ördög’s former assets and properties to Emeric Perényi.18

The literal expression used in the text to describe the coming together of the two potential newlyweds was matrimoniali foedere copulare, meaning to join in matrimonial alliance. The term bore the obvious implication that this union would ultimately lead to an unthinkable scenario whereby the grandchild of Sultan Bayezid could sometime in the future wear the Holy Crown of St. Stephen. One can only imagine the consternation that news of such a union would have caused among Sigismund’s followers and god-fearing Catholics. In one document from 1404, Sigismund described Bayezid as “the abominable enemy and persecutor of the Christ’s Cross and the whole Orthodox faith,” presenting the sultan as the “principal rival” of his royal majesty.19 Certainly, at the time, cooperation with the Turks was equivalent to high treason, which meant that it would be punished with the harshest penalties, and it is therefore easy to consider that these one-sided charges might have constituted unjustified allegations or possibly biased claims with the intention of discrediting Sigismund’s adversaries.

Nevertheless, upon closer inspection, almost all the accusations against Voivode Stephen Lackfi of Csáktornya, a.k.a. Čakovec, appear to be true. Namely, the text of the charters clearly alleges that he conspired against Sigismund in favor of Ladislaus of Naples, and Stephen was actually one of the most prominent supporters of the Angevin cause on the east coast of the Adriatic. As a member of a very powerful noble family which had estates all over the kingdom, in various periods of his political career he was ban of Croatia and Dalmatia, palatine of Hungary, voivode of Transylvania, and count of Zadar, to name just some of the most important offices he held.20 Sigismund also claimed that Stephen maintained a correspondence with Ladislaus, who delegated him as one of his representatives in the Kingdom of Hungary, and in October 1392, Ladislaus really did send a series of letters to his Balkan allies, including one addressed to “Stefano de Luczlris [!],” palatine of the Kingdom of Hungary.21 So the allegation that Stephen obtained letters from Ladislaus are also true. The serious accusation of plotting to achieve a marital alliance with the sultan was likewise quite possibly genuine, since Ladislaus was eligible for marriage at the time. He had been briefly married in 1389 to the twelve-year-old Costanza, the daughter of Sicilian nobleman Manfredi Chiaramonte, Count of Modica and Malta, ruler of Palermo. But the bride’s father died in 1391, and after her brother Andrea was executed by hostile Aragonese forces in Sicily the following year, the marriage became politically inconvenient and unprofitable for Ladislaus. He managed to obtain an annulment by decree of pope Boniface IX, and in July 1392, the Bishop of Gaeta and Cardinal Acciaiuoli announced the dissolution of the marriage in church. The supposed reason for the termination was the age of the couple, who were both twelve at the time of the nuptials.22

The only problem with the sources presented here is that both Bonfini and Thuróczy, as well as Sigismund’s charters, say that the alliance and Ladislaus’ proposal to marry the sultan’s daughter occurred during Sigismund’s military campaign against the “savage and ferocious Turks and other pagans” in the Kingdom of Bulgaria, and at a time when Sigismund was suffering with his allies during a stormy voyage across the Mediterranean, dating it to the year 1396. However, other available documents shed a somewhat different light on the chronology of the whole matter and suggest that the establishment of an Angevin-Ottoman alliance was expected several years before the battle of Nicopolis.

Ladislaus’ Letters

On October 18, 1392, just a few days after he dispatched the aforementioned messages to his allies across the Adriatic, three other letters were devised in Ladislaus’ chancery in Gaeta, addressed to Sultan Bayezid and two of his senior officials in the Balkans. Regrettably, the original documents were part of the Angevin registers, which were completely destroyed by fire during World War II.23 However, before they were destroyed, the letters were published and made available in 1876 by Gusztáv Wenzel in the collection Hungarian diplomatic monuments from the Anjou age, also known as the third volume of Monumenta Hungariae Historica’s Acta Extera.24

The first of the three letters was addressed to the “most Serene Ruler, Lord Bayezid, Emperor of the Turks” – maiori fratri nostro – who was greeted with “brotherly and sincere affection.” In the message, Ladislaus regretfully conceded that the physical distance between the two of them made it impossible for them to meet personally, and he thus found it useful and necessary to write to him and to send an orator who could faithfully deliver the message and commendably complement it. He then says that he wanted to discuss some issues with the sultan which, due to the distance, he could not explain in words, so he entrusted the matter to a messenger whose name was, curiously, not stated, but Ladislaus nevertheless referred to him as a noble, a familiaris, and a loyal subject. Therefore, the letter continues, relying on the sincere benevolence and brotherly love of the sultan’s imperial majesty, the king recommended the messenger and requested that he be trusted with confidence in all things he said about Ladislaus’ agenda. And finally, the king revealed his desire to hear about Bayezid’s prosperity, since he was impelled by fraternal zeal to be joined to him by bonds of consanguinity, and thus asked to be informed in writing, along with his mother Margaret and sister Johanna, about the sultan’s opinion on this matter. The document itself was sealed with Ladislaus’ great pendent seal.25

On the very same day, two other letters, identical in content, were composed, one to “illustri Amortas” and the other to “illustri Aguphasa,” both of whom were referred to as “amico nostro carissimo.” Amortas was evidently Kara Timurtaş Pasha, while Agupasha was probably a Latinized corrupted version of the name Yakub Pasha.26 These two high-ranking dignitaries were especially active in spreading Ottoman authority throughout southeast Europe during the last decade of the fourteenth century, and they even appeared together as Ταμονρτάσης and Γιαγονπασάς in a Byzantine Short chronicle for the year 1397, when they besieged and conquered Venetian held Argos in the Peloponnese.27 The letters informed them that Ladislaus had sent a messenger to Bayezid in order to negotiate certain issues concerning his honor and position, and that the same messenger will be visiting them as well. Among the other diplomatic and courteous phrases, the king then stated that he was particularly grateful for their friendship, and he placed himself at their disposal.28

To the uninformed observer, the contents of these letters might appear quite shocking and improbable, but the conclusion of a pragmatic alliance with the Ottomans, along the lines of the maxim the enemy of my enemy is my friend, represented a logical step in Ladislaus’ policy towards the Balkans. At that time, he had absolutely nothing to lose, and the envisaged “Gaeta–Edirne axis” was supposed to orchestrate a two-pronged attack against King Sigismund, helping both Ladislaus and Bayezid achieve their interests. But what does look strange in these letters is the proposal to seal and strengthen the alliance through a wedding, since it was highly unlikely that a sultan of the Ottoman Empire would allow his Muslim daughter to be married to a Catholic monarch, regardless of any potential strategic or diplomatic benefit he might have gained. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Ottoman rulers practiced royal intermarriage by marrying members of ruling dynasties from neighboring countries, even if they were Christians. An early example is Emir Orhan, who in 1346 married the daughter of Emperor John VI,29 and even Bayezid himself married Olivera, the daughter of Knez Lazar.30 But Muslim law is quite strict regarding these mixed marriages, and it states that a Muslim man may, under special circumstances, marry a non-Muslim woman, yet a Muslim woman was unequivocally and strictly forbidden from marrying a non-Muslim man.31 Therefore, it is far more likely that the Ottomans opted to use these marriage negotiations as a simple diplomatic device intended to sustain interest in the alliance for as long as possible, without any serious consideration of actually accepting the wedding proposal.

One can also attempt to wave Ladislaus’ proposition off as something that was, perhaps, planned but never realized, since we cannot know for sure whether the letters and the emissary were indeed ever sent to the sultan’s court. However, less than a year after the messages were formulated, the Venetian Senate deliberated about a rather peculiar incident. On September 11, 1393, the Senators decided that they would respond to Francesco Bembo, their captain of the Adriatic Gulf, saying that they had understood the letters that he had sent them from Split on 28 August, in which, among other things, he mentioned that a certain Nicholas from Trogir had told him that he had been ordered by his lord to transfer with his brigantine to Apulia a Turk who was an ambassador of lord Basait. According to the letter, the Turk was apparently heading to King Ladislaus in order to complete nuptials which were agreed upon between him and the daughter of the said Basait.32 In the response, captain Bembo was ordered specifically to check and be sure that the Turkish envoy was not planning to work towards a certain “dishonest cause” which could damage the interests of the Venetian Republic. In that case, and if he were ever to get his hands on the ambassador, he was instructed to let him be and protect the said brigantine from injury or violence. In fact, the captain was told that the messenger should be honored with appropriate words and conduct so that he would have reason to praise their government and the captain himself.33

This letter is more or less a corpus delicti. It confirms that Ladislaus and the Ottomans had indeed attempted to exchange embassies and that a potential marriage alliance had been in the cards since the early 1390s.34 Of course, such activities could not have gone unnoticed and would certainly have sparked revolt among the devout and pious Christians. Nevertheless, the document itself does not give us sufficient cause to conclude with certainty that Bayezid’s ambassador ever reached Gaeta, since indisputable confirmation of his presence there is yet to be found. In this regard, there is one interesting though unsubstantiated claim from an important early modern historian, Scipione Ammirato († 1601), who published a biography of King Ladislaus in 1583. In this text he says that Ladislaus planned to establish relations with Bayezid, the ruler of the Turks, and to do so he traveled to Rome, where he requested papal dispensation from Pope Boniface IX while Bayezid’s ambassadors remained by his side. In the end, Ammirato states that nothing came of the whole scheme, mostly because it was difficult for Ladislaus to ensure the security of the agreement more than anything else.35

The anticipated marriage clearly never materialized, and many historians thought that this implied a breakdown in the negotiations and a premature end of the Angevin-Ottoman alliance. It is true that contemporary documents do not provide any more indication of the reasons why the wedding was abandoned, but the course of events after 1393 leave little doubt that the two sides maintained further contacts and continued to undermine the reign of King Sigismund in Hungary.

The Alliance in Practice

This is perhaps best demonstrated by the political and military developments in Bosnia, Croatia, and Dalmatia where Ladislaus had numerous supporters who could implement the Angevin-Ottoman cooperation in practice. In this respect, one letter particularly stands out among other available sources, as it unambiguously explains what went on during a dense period of defining incidents which occurred throughout 1393 and 1394, further complicating the already convoluted political landscape of the Balkans. The message was sent from Venice in July 1394 by Florentine merchant and diplomat Gherardo Davizi. It was addressed to Donato Acciaiuoli, the older brother of Neri Acciaiuoli, the Duke of Athens. In it, Davizi described how he had recently seen a letter from the Bosnian King Dabiša (1391–1395), who informed the Venetians about a recent Bosnian victory over the Turks. According to the king’s report, the outcome of the battle caused a rift among his subjects, whereby his former allies, the Horváti brothers, Bishop Paul and Ban John, had abandoned him and had traveled to the court of Sultan Bayezid who, at their initiative, proclaimed a different man as the new King of Bosnia and gave them a large army in order to help them install this new king in his newly acquired royal position. As he was unable to deal with this threat alone, Dabiša came to an agreement with Sigismund in Đakovo, relinquishing his claims on Croatia and Dalmatia and declaring Sigismund his designated successor on the Bosnian throne in exchange for military assistance in defeating the insurgents.36 Seeing as the Horváti brothers were the principal advocates of the Angevin cause in the Balkans (especially Ban John, who was named by Ladislaus as his general deputy in the Kingdom of Hungary),37 the contents of this letter clearly imply that the supporters of King Ladislaus and his main representatives on the eastern coast of the Adriatic maintained concrete and substantial connections with the Ottoman court of Sultan Bayezid, using his military support to influence regional politics in their favor.

Although their attempts to replace the Bosnian King with a person who would be loyal to King Ladislaus initially proved unsuccessful,38 as the combined forces of the Bosnian and Hungarian armies defeated the rebels at the castle of Dobor in northern Bosnia, members of the Angevin faction were prepared to bide their time. After Dabiša passed away in September 1395,39 Sigismund could not fulfill the provisions of the Đakovo pact and crown himself with the Bosnian crown, since in the same year his pregnant wife also died as he was busy fighting the Ottomans on the Lower Danube.40 Obliged by the agreement of the two monarchs, the Bosnian nobility arrived at a solution by proclaiming Dabiša’s widow Helen as queen (1395–1398), which meant that she would simply extend the reign of her dead husband until Sigismund finally became free and available to crown himself King of Bosnia.41 The Bosnians maintained this arrangement even after Sigismund suffered defeat at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, as he did not present a tangible threat for them, but as soon as he regained any semblance of control in the kingdom, they got rid of Helen and elected King Ostoja (1398–1404; 1409–1418) in her place.42 This was a calculated step which was supposed to reflect the stance of the Bosnian nobility and their wish to guide the kingdom towards an openly pro-Angevin political course. On the issue of Hungarian succession, the new monarch sided with King Ladislaus of Naples, and this position also came to be reflected in his relationship with the Ottoman Turks. It is even assumed that his path to the throne could have been paved by an Ottoman military campaign carried out during the previous winter with the aim of destabilizing Bosnia.43

Numerous contemporary sources confirm this profound political change and illuminate how the Angevin–Ottoman alliance was practically implemented with the assistance of the Bosnian king and his nobles. For instance, already in March 1399, representatives of the merchant commune of Ragusa were informed that King Ostoja intended to travel to the southern parts of his realm in order to meet with a Turkish ambassador.44 Furthermore, in June 1399, an intriguing inscription in the minutes of the Ragusan Senate states that the “Bosnians are in concordance with the Turks.”45 At the very same time, King Ostoja and the other Bosnian nobles were engaged in an armed struggle against King Sigismund, and they still supported King Ladislaus in his attempts to gain the Hungarian throne, so it seems that despite all the turbulent events of the early 1390s, the Bosnians, Angevins, and Ottomans still managed to end the decade on the same political wavelength.46

There is other evidence to support this claim. For instance, in August 1399, an Ottoman embassy traveled through Ragusa in order to get to the other side of the Adriatic. Similarly, in 1400 new Ottoman envoys arrived to the market town of Drijeva, which was then a part of the Bosnian kingdom, but mostly populated by Ragusan merchants, and they wanted to resume their journey to Apulia. Unlike the delegation from the previous year, this party was obstructed by the Ragusans and prevented from going any further. This act provoked Voivode Hrvoje Vukčić, a prominent supporter of King Ladislaus, who was described by King Sigismund in June of 1398 as “a perfidious follower of treachery” and accused of joining the Turks, “the monstrous infidels of Christ’s Cross.”47 Hrvoje wrote a protest note to the Ragusan government stating that “the Lord King Ostoja is complaining” since their men stopped “the Turkish envoys and prohibited them from going across the sea.” In their defense, the Ragusans devised a diplomatic response, justifying themselves by claiming that this had happened without their prior knowledge, since they do not come “between the King of Bosnia, the King of Hungary, and the Turks,” and they promised that they would find and punish the guilty individuals.48 As an additional pledge of their innocence, the Ragusans reminded King Ostoja of the case from August 1399, when they had allowed the Ottoman envoys “to pass across the sea” despite the protests of Dmitar, the son of Serbian King Vukašin, who advised them not to do so.49 This document proves that cordial contacts and interactions between Ladislaus and Bayezid continued well after 1393, regardless of the failed attempt to create a union through marriage, and that they were facilitated by representatives of the pro-Angevin faction within the Bosnian Kingdom. These exchanges steadily became a genuine feature of political affairs at the time, and they clearly had repercussions for the whole of the Balkans and for Bosnia in particular.

The alliance between the Angevins and Ottomans was upheld even after the calamitous collapse of Sultan Bayezid’s reign at the battle of Ankara in 1402 and Ladislaus’ coronation in Zadar the following year. This is confirmed in a letter sent from Rome on August 28, 1406 by Peter von Wormditt († 1419), Procurator General of the Teutonic Knights and their representative at the Holy See, to Konrad von Jungingen († 1407), Grand Master of the Order. Wormditt informed his superior about the imperial and territorial ambitions of King Ladislaus, who aimed to surround Rome both by land and by sea. He then reported how he was told by a reliable source that one of the sultan’s sons; the one who escaped Tamerlane, evidently Prince Suleyman, had his messengers at the court of King Ladislaus, where they offered him an alliance and friendship. Apparently, Suleyman was ready to employ all his might in helping Ladislaus become King of Hungary. The letter continues to say that the messengers were still in Italy at the time of writing and that it was not known whether an agreement would be reached. Moreover, Wormditt ended his communication by stating that on June 24 of the same year, while King Sigismund was engaged in peace negotiations with Austrian Herzog Wilhelm of Habsburg, Prince Suleyman arrived with a great army to the land of Bosnia, “which belongs to Hungary,” where he caused great damage, dislodging more than 14,000 Christians in the process, and where he still remained with a considerable force.50

This means that by 1406, after a relatively short period of respite from Ottoman involvement in their internal affairs, the Bosnians once again began to rely on the Turks in their conflict with Sigismund.51 In that sense, the King of Hungary was faced with a double threat, and there are numerous documents which indicate this cooperation by conflating and fusing the Bosnians and the Turks as one common enemy. The broader historical context and the sheer number of such examples show that this was not merely accusatory discourse or pejorative rhetoric which dishonestly labeled Bosnians as Turks, but that the two sides actually collaborated and assisted each other in their efforts to reach a common goal.52 There are numerous instances in the preserved sources that mention this cooperation. For example, the “perfidious Turks” and “schismatic Bosnians” were grouped together, along with other enemies of and rebels against Sigismund, in two charters from April and October 1406,53 and then on a few occasions in 1407,54 at least a couple of times in 1408,55 and throughout Sigismund’s reign, for instance in 1417, 1418, 1425, and 1437.56 Regardless of whether Sigismund was referring to battles from the first decade of the fifteenth century or speaking in general, the idea that Bosnians and Turks worked together stuck in his mind long after these conflicts had passed.

The implications of King Ladislaus’ collusion with the Turks left an indelible mark on Bosnia, extending even beyond his own interest in the region. After Sigismund’s decisive victory over his enemies in 1408, which forced Hrvoje Vukčić to switch sides and submit himself to his authority, Ladislaus sold his possessions and royal rights over Dalmatia to Venice for 100,000 ducats, basically abandoning his trans-Adriatic ambitions.57 However, irrespective of this inglorious outcome of the decades-long struggle to support Angevin aspirations for the throne of the Hungarian Kingdom, some Bosnians refused to come to terms with the political reality of the time. They continued to maintain close connections to Ladislaus, and through him with the Ottomans. A case in point is Bosnian Voivode Sandalj Hranić. In 1409, he sent a messenger to Ragusa to explain that King Ladislaus was still his “friend” and that he would be willing to perform any honorable service for him, stating that he could rely on military aid both from Apulians and from the Turks.58 And his Ottoman ties did not end there. On one occasion in 1411 when Sigismund complained to the Pope against the Venetians who had purchased the Dalmatian fortress of Ostrovica from Voivode Sandalj, the Venetians defended their position by declaring that they had bought the castle in the interest of the whole of Christendom, because Sandalj had many Turks and could have just as well have given Ostrovica to them.59 In the same year, the Venetians sent a letter to the commune of Kotor telling them that Sandalj had with him, “as it is said,” 7,000 Turks.60 By that time, however, the situation for Sandalj became untenable, and he soon joined the camp of King Sigismund.

Concluding Remarks

Although the envisaged wedding never took place, there is no question that messengers were exchanged between the courts of Gaeta and Edirne, resulting in a real and tangible Angevin-Ottoman alliance that was executed through concrete military cooperation between Ladislaus’ representatives in the Balkans and their Ottoman counterparts in the form of combined attacks against King Sigismund and his subjects. Viewed in the appropriate historical context, the accusations that King Sigismund directed against Ladislaus and his Balkan allies blaming them for cooperating with the Turks, which were previously waved off as possibly biased or unfounded allegations, turn out to have been grounded in reality and based on actual events.

Possibly the key problem in the whole issue is whether the idea of an alliance with the Turks came from Ladislaus himself or from his followers in Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia. More research will have to be done in order to answer this question properly, but in the geopolitical context of the time, an alliance with the Turks was a natural and rational step for both Ladislaus and his Balkan supporters. This was, in fact, a classic case of political opportunism, in which Ladislaus expected that the sultan’s military help would be a useful tool in achieving full control of what he believed rightfully belonged to him. The language of his letters to the sultan extended beyond mere diplomatic courtesy and showed his readiness to achieve an alliance at almost any cost. It was an unscrupulous Machiavellian move, a century before Machiavelli, in which the end justified the means. In that sense, the Holy Crown of St. Stephen was deemed a prize worthy enough to vindicate even “collusion with infidels.”

The local nobility in the Balkans was aware that the sultan disposed of seemingly endless resources and had already by that time began directing his armies north across the Danube, through Bulgaria and Serbia. If they could not beat the Ottomans, they could join them and try to achieve their own goals by launching joint attacks against Hungary from Bosnia and Croatia. On the other hand, the Ottoman Turks sought to impose themselves on the Christian lords by pursuing a policy of divide et impera, supporting conflicts among them and not leaving them much choice other than to call upon Ottoman assistance in their internecine struggles. As Ladislaus and his court in Italy were almost completely reliant on local political factors in the Balkans, it seems far more likely that plans for this military and diplomatic collaboration with the Turks were devised among Ladislaus’ overseas advisors. If it can indeed be proved that the idea originated from Croat or Bosnian nobles, particularly from the Horváti or Hrvatinić brothers, who might have initially suggested it to Ladislaus, then this would just highlight the depth of the chasm between Sigismund and his rebels, who evidently preferred working with the aggressive Sultan Bayezid over being ruled by the “Czech swine,” as they affectionately referred to the King of Hungary.

Regardless of whether the idea came from his Balkan or Italian counsellors, Ladislaus’ decision to reach out to Sultan Bayezid had practical effects and far reaching consequences, and it greatly impacted overall political events in Southeast Europe at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth. This was especially the case in Bosnia, where supporting Ladislaus eventually came to mean sustaining an open and public alliance with the Turks, as well as potentially forever being tainted with the stain of collaboration and ultimately alienating those from whom help was needed most when Bosnia struggled against the very same Turks at a later stage. It proved to be a naive, narrow-minded policy which involved the sacrifice of long-term goals for short-term benefit, as this outlandish political adventure ended in 1408 in spectacular failure for Ladislaus, when he was forced to retreat definitively from his ambitions of ruling over Hungary. By doing so, he had abandoned his Bosnian supporters, whose land had already become a base for advanced Ottoman conquests towards the west and north. Irrespective of its failed final outcome, this strategic three-way alliance left a profound impression on the history of the region. Further exposing the mechanisms by which it functioned would help us understand the actions and conduct of all those who were involved in the struggle for political supremacy at the time and would hopefully allow us to arrive at a clearer image of the events which decisively shaped the political landscape of the Balkans for decades and even centuries to come

Bibliography

Archival sources

Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV)

Deliberazioni Misti del Senato, reg. 42.

Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (BML)

Carteggio Acciaiuoli II, no. 212.

Državni arhiv u Dubrovniku [Dubrovnik State Archives] (DAD)

Diversa Cancellariae, vol. 32

Lettere di Levante, vol. 1

Reformationes, vol. 31

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár [The National Archives of Hungary] (MNL)

Országos Levéltár, Budapest, Hungary [The State Archive] (OL)

Mohács előtti gyűjtemény [Collection of Documents from the Period before the Battle of Mohács (1526)] (Q)

Diplomatikai levéltár [The Archive of Diplomatics] (DL)

Fényképgyűjtemény [The Photographic Collection] (U)

Mohács előtti fényképgyűjtemény [The Photographic Collection of Documents from the Period before the Battle of Mohács (1526)] (DF)

 

Printed sources and secondary literature

Ammirato, Scipione. Gli opuscoli. Florence: Apresso Giorgio Marescotti, 1583.

Atiya, Aziz Sural. The Crusade of Nicopolis. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1934.

Barabás, Samu, ed. Codex diplomaticus Sacri Romani Imperii comitum familiae Teleki de Szék. 2 vols. Budapest: Athenaeum, 1895.

Barone, Nicola. “Notizie raccolte dai registri di cancelleria del re Ladislao di Durazzo.” Archivio storico per le province napoletane 12 (1887): 493–512, 725–39.

de Bonfinis, Antonius. Rerum Ungaricarum Decades, edited by József Fógel, Béla Iványi, and László Juhász. 4 vols. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1936.

Borghese, Gian Luca. “Les registres de la chancellerie angevine de Naples: Un exemple de destruction et reconstitution de sources archivistiques à travers les siècles.” Médiévales 69 (2015): 171–82.

Bryer, Anthony A. M. “Greek Historians on the Turks: the case of the first Byzantine-Ottoman marriage.” In The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to R. W. Southern, edited by R. H. C. Davis, and J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, 471–93. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.

Capasso, Bartolomeo. Inventario cronologico-sistematico dei Registri Angioni conservati nell’Archivio di Stato in Napoli. Napoli: R. Rinaldi e G. Sellitto, 1894.

Cutolo, Alessandro. Re Ladislao d’Angiò-Durazzo. 2 vols. Milan: Ulrich Hoepli, 1936.

Ćirković, Sima. “O Đakovačkom ugovoru” [About the Đakovo agreement]. Istorijski glasnik 1–4 (1962): 3–10.

Ćirković, Sima. Istorija srednjovekovne bosanske države [The history of the medieval Bosnian state]. Belgrade: Srpska književna zadruga, 1964.

Ćirković, Sima. “Poklad kralja Vukašina” [The treasure of King Vukašin]. Zbornik Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu 14 (1979): 153–63.

Codex diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus ac civilis, edited by Georgius Fejér. 11 vols. Budae: Typis typogr. regiae universitatis Hungaricae, 1829–1844.

Dennis, George T. The Reign of Manuel II Palaeologus in Thessalonica, 1382–1387. Roma: Pont. Institutum Orienatalium Studiorum, 1960.

Dennis, George T. “The Byzantine–Turkish Treaty of 1403.” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 33 (1967): 72–88.

Devereux, Andrew W. “‘The ruin and slaughter of … fellow Christians’: The French as Threat to Christendom in Spanish Assertions of Sovereignty in Italy, 1479–1516.” In Representing Imperial Rivalry in the Early Modern Mediterranean, edited by Barbara Fuchs, and Emily Weissbourd, 101–25. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015.

Engel, Pál. “A török-magyar háborúk első évei, 1389–1392” [The first years of the Turkish–Hungarian war, 1389–1392]. Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 111 (1998): 561–77.

Engel, Pál. “Ungarn und die Türkengefahr zur Zeit Sigimunds (1387–1437).” In Das Zeitalter König Sigmunds in Ungarn und im Deutschen Reich, edited by Tilmann Schmidt, and Péter Gunst, 55–71. Debrecen: Debrecen University Press, 2000.

Engel, Pál. The Realm of St Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 825–1526. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2001.

Fejérpataky, László, ed. Magyar czimeres emlékek: Monumenta Hungariae Heraldica. 2 vols. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1901–1902.

Filangieri, Riccardo. L’Archivio di Stato di Napoli durante la seconda guerra mondiale, edited by Stefano Palmieri. Napoli: Arte tipografica, 1996.

Filipović, Emir O. “Bosna i Turci za vrijeme kralja Stjepana Dabiše: Neke nove spoznaje” [Bosnia and the Turks during the reign of King Stephen Dabiša: Some new insights]. In Spomenica Dr Tibora Živkovića, edited by Srđan Rudić, 273–301. Belgrade: Institute of History, 2016.

Filipović, Emir O. “The Ottoman–Serbian Attack on Bosnia in 1398.” In Uluslararası Balkan Tarihi ve Kültürü Sempozyumu – Bildiriler, cilt I, edited by Aşkin Koyuncu, 119–25. Çanakkale: Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi, 2017.

Fleet, Kate. “The Treaty of 1387 between Murād I and the Genoese.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 56 (1993): 13–33.

Fleet, Kate. “Turkish–Latin Relations at the End of the Fourteenth Century.” Acta orientalia Academiae scientiarum Hungaricae 49 (1996): 131–37.

Fleet, Kate. European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State: The Merchants of Genoa and Turkey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Fleet, Kate. “Turkish–Latin Diplomatic Relations in the Fourteenth Century: The Case of the Consul,” Oriente Moderno 22 (2003): 605–11.

Fostikov, Aleksandra. “O Dmitru Kraljeviću” [About Dmitar Kraljević]. Istorijski časopis 49 (2002): 47–65.

Fostikov, Aleksandra. “Jelena Gruba, bosanska kraljica: Bosna krajem 14. veka (1395–1399)” [Jelena Gruba, Bosnian queen: Bosnia at the end of the fourteenth century]. Braničevski glasnik 3–4 (2006): 29–50.

Gill, Joseph. “John VI Cantacuzenus and the Turks.” Byzantina 13 (1985): 55–76.

Halecki, Oscar. Un Empereur de Byzance à Rome: Vingt ans de travail pour l’union des églises et pour la défense de l’empire d’Orient 1355–1375. Warszawa: Nakł. Towarzystwa Naukowego Warszawskiego, 1930.

Hoensch, Jörg K. Kaiser Sigismund: Herrscher an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit 1368–1437. Munich: Beck, 1996.

Hóman, Bálint. Gli Angioini di Napoli in Ungheria, 1290–1403. Roma: Reale accademia d’Italia, 1938.

Huber, Alfons. “Die Gefangennehmung der Königinnen Elisabeth und Maria von Ungarn und die Kämpfe König Sigismunds gegen die Neapolitanische Partei und die Übrigen Reichsfeinde in den Jahren 1386-1395.” Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte 66 (1885): 509–48.

Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1990.

İnalcık, Halil. “The Ottoman Turks and the Crusade, 1329–1451.” In A History of the Crusades. Vol. 6, The Impact of Crusades on Europe, edited by Harry W. Hazard, and Norman P. Zacour, 222–75. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.

İslâm Ansiklopedisi. 13 vols. Istanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1948–1987.

Isom-Verhaaren, Christine. Allies with the Infidel: The Ottoman and French Alliance in the Sixteenth Century. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011.

Jamison, Evelyn M. “Documents from the Angevin Registers of Naples: Charles I.” Papers of the British School at Rome 17 (1949): 87–173.

Juhász, Lajos. Thuróczy és Bonfini krónikájának összehasonlítása Zsigmondtól Mátyásig [The comparison of the Thuróczy and Bonfini chronicles from Sigismund to Mátyás]. Szeged: Árpád-nyomda, 1938.

Karácsonyi, János. “A kerekegyházi Laczkfyak családfája” [The family tree of the Laczkfy family of Kerekegyház]. Turul. A Magyar Heraldikai és Genealógiai Társaság közlönye 2 (1884): 166–73.

Karbić, Marija. “Lackovići (Lackfi) iz plemićkog roda Hermán” [Lackovići (Lackfi) from the noble kin of Hermán]. VDG Jahrbuch 16 (2009): 13–29.

Kastritsis, Dimitris J. The Sons of Bayezid: Empire Building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 1402–13. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007.

Klaić, Vjekoslav. “Tko je to ‘rex Ikach’” [Who is ‘rex Ikach’]. In Bosnensia, 12–15. Zagreb: Tisak Dioničke tiskare, 1879.

Klaić, Vjekoslav. Povjest Hrvata: Od najstarijih vremena do svršetka XIX. stoljeća. [The history of Croats: From the oldest times to the end of the nineteenth century]. 5 vols. Zagreb: L. Hartman, 1899–1911.

Koeppen, Hans, and Kurt Forstreuter, eds. Die Berichte der Generalprokuratoren des Deutschen Ordens an der Kurie. 4 vols. Cologne and Göttingen: Böhlau and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960–1976.

Kranzieritz, Károly. “Változások a Délvidéken Nikápoly után: Az 1397. és 1398. év katonai eseményei” [Changes in the south after Nicopolis: Military events of 1397 and 1398]. Micae Mediaevales 2 (2012): 97–108.

Kurtović, Esad. Veliki vojvoda bosanski Sandalj Hranić Kosača [The grand voivode of Bosnia, Sandalj Hranić Kosača]. Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju, 2009.

Lázár, Miklós. “A két Laczk család eredete” [The origins of the two Laczk Families]. Turul. A Magyar Heraldikai és Genealógiai Társaság közlönye 2 (1884): 110–12.

Léonard, Émile G. Gli Angioini di Napoli. Milano: Dall’Oglio, 1967.

Ljubić, Šime, ed. Listine o odnošajih izmedju južnoga Slavenstva i Mletačke republike [Documents on relations between the southern Slavs and the Venetian Republic]. 10 vols. Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, 1868–1891.

Loenertz, Raymond. “Pour l’histoire du Péloponèse au XIVe siècle (1382–1404).” Études byzantines 1 (1943): 152–96.

Lovrenović, Dubravko. “Modelle ideologischer Ausgrenzung: Ungarn und Bosnien als ideologische Gegner auf der Basis verschiedener Bekenntnisse des Christentums.” Südost-Forschungen 63–64 (2004–2005): 18–55.

Lovrenović, Dubravko. Na klizištu povijesti: Sveta kruna ugarska i Sveta kruna bosanska 1387–1463 [On the landslide of history: The holy crown of Hungary and the holy crown of Bosnia]. Zagreb and Sarajevo: Synopsis, 2006.

Majláth, Béla. “A Laczk nemzetség” [The Laczk Clan]. Turul. A Magyar Heraldikai és Genealógiai Társaság közlönye 2 (1884): 21–29.

Mályusz, Elemér. “Ikach rex Bosnensis.” Studia slavica Academiae scientiarum Hungaricae 14 (1968): 259–67.

Mályusz, Elemér. Kaiser Sigismund in Ungarn 1387–1437. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1990.

Miskolczy, István. “Nápolyi László” [Ladislaus of Naples]. Századok 55–56 (1921–1922): 330–50, 499–523.

Muresan, Dan Ioan. “Avant Nicopolis: la campagne de 1395 pour le contrôle du Bas-Danube.” Revue Internationale d’Histoire Militaire 83 (2003): 115–32.

Murphey, Rhoads. “Bayezid I’s Foreign Policy Plans and Priorities: Power Relations, Statecraft, Military Conditions and Diplomatic Practice in Anatolia and the Balkans.” In Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204–1453, edited by Nikolaos G. Chrissis, and Mike Carr, 177–215. London and New York: Routledge, 2016.

Ostrogorski, Georgije. “Byzance, Etat tributaire de L’empire Turc.” Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta 5 (1958): 49–58

Palmieri, Stefano. Degli archivi napolitani: Storia e tradizione. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002.

Pór, Antal, and Schönherr, Gyula. Az Anjou ház és Örökösei (1301–1439). Budapest: Athenaeum, 1895.

Purković, Miodrag Al. Kćeri kneza Lazara: Istorijska studija [The daughters of Knez Lazar: A historical study]. Beograd: Pešić i sinovi, 1996.

Rački, Franjo, “Izvadci iz kralj osrednjeg arkiva u Napulju” [Excerpts from the royal archives in Naples]. Arkiv za povjestnicu jugoslavensku 7 (1863): 5–71.

Rački, Franjo. “Pokret na slavenskom jugu koncem XIV i početkom XV stoljeća” [The movement on the Slavic south at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century]. Rad Jugoslavenske Akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 2 (1868): 68–160; 3 (1868): 65–156; 4 (1868): 1–103.

Rázsó, Gyula. “A Zsigmond kori Magyarország és a török veszély, 1393–1437” [Hungary in the Age of Sigismund and the Turkish Danger, 1393–1437]. Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 20 (1973): 403–41.

Salamon, Maciej. “On the Credibility of an Item in Jan Długosz’s Chronicle: May 17, 1395 – the Date of the Battle of Rovine or of the death of Queen Mary?” In Mélanges d’histoire Byzantine offerts à Oktawiusz Jurewicz à l’occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire, edited by Waldemar Ceran, 164–70. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 1998.

Schönherr, Gyula. “Nápolyi László trónkövetelésének külföldi vonatkozásai” [The international implications of Ladislaus of Naples’ ambition for the throne]. Értekezések a történeti tudományok köréből 17, no. 4 (1898): 237–66.

Schreiner, Peter, ed. Die Byzantinischen Kleinchroniken. 3 vols. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1975–1979.

Setton, Kenneth M. The Papacy and the Levant, 1204-1571. Vol. 1, The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1976.

Smičiklas, Tadija, ed. Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae. 18 vols. Zagreb: Academia scientiarum et artium Slavorum Meridionalium, 1904–1990.

Stojanović, Ljubomir, ed. Stare srpske povelje i pisma [Old Serbian charters and letters]. 2. vols. Beograd and Sremski Karlovci: Srpska kraljevska akademija, 1929–1934.

Süttő, Szilárd. “Der Dynastiewechsel Anjou-Luxemburg in Ungarn.” In Sigismund von Luxembourg: Ein Kaiser in Europa. Tagungsband des internationalen historischen und kunsthistorischen Kongresses in Luxembourg, 8–10. Juni 2005., edited by Michel Pauly, and François Reinert, 79–87. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2006.

Šišić, Ferdo, ed. “Nekoliko isprava iz početka XV st” [Some documents from the beginning of the 15th century]. Starine Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 39 (1938): 129–320.

Szakály, Ferenc. “Phases of Turco–Hungarian Warfare before the Battle of Mohács (1365–1526).” Acta orientalia Academiae scientiarum Hungaricae 33 (1979): 65–111.

Szalay, József. “Nápolyi László trónkövetelése és Velencze” [Venice and Ladislaus of Naples’ ambition for the throne]. Századok. A Magyar történelmi társulat közlönye 16 (1882): 557–64, 643–55, 751–59, 836–44.

Šišić, Ferdo. Vojvoda Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić i njegovo doba (1350.–1416.) [Voivode Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić and his time]. Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 1902.

Šunjić, Marko. Bosna i Venecija (odnosi u XIV. i XV. st.) [Bosnia and Venice (relations in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries)]. Sarajevo: HKD Napredak, 1996.

Thallóczy, Lajos. “Mantovai követjárás Budán 1395.” Értekezések a Történeti Tudományok köréből 20 (1905): 283–92.

Thallóczy, Lajos, and Samu Barabás, eds. Codex diplomaticus comitum de Blagay: A Blagay család oklevéltára (1200–1578). Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1897.

Thallóczy, Lajos, and Antal Áldásy, eds. A Magyarország és Szerbia közti összeköttetések oklevéltára (1198-1526) [Cartulary of the political ties of Hungary and Serbia, 1198– 1526]. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1907.

Thallóczy, Lajos, ed. Studien zur Geschichte Bosniens und Serbiens im Mittelalter. Munich and Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1914.

de Thurocz, Johannes. Chronica Hungarorum, edited by Elisabeth Galántai and Gyula Kristó. 2 vols. Budapest: Akadémiai kiadó, 1985.

Thuróczy, János. Chronicle of the Hungarians. Translated by Frank Mantello, edited by Pál Engel. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1991.

Truhelka, Ćiro. “Kroničke bilješke u ‘Liber Reformationum’ dubrovačke arkive” [The chronological inscriptions of the ‘Liber Reformationum’ in the Dubrovnik archives]. Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja Bosne i Hercegovine 20 (1908): 267–73.

Valente, Angela. “Margherita di Durazzo, vicaria di Carlo III e tutrice di re Ladislao.” Archivio storico per le province napoletane 40 (1915): 265–312, 457–502; 41 (1916): 267–310; 43 (1918): 5–43, 169–214.

Wenzel, Gusztáv, ed. Magyar diplomacziai emlékek az Anjou-Korból. 3 vols. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1874–1876.

Wenzel, Gusztáv. “Okmánytár Ozorai Pipo történetéhez.” Történelmi tár 10 (1884): 1–31, 220–47, 412–37, 613–27.

Werner, Ernst. “Johannes Kantakuzenos, Umur Paša und Orhan.” Byzantinoslavica 26 (1965): 255–76.

Wilczek, Ede. “A Horváthy család lázadása, és a magyar tengervidék elszakadása” [The rebellion of the Horváthy Family and the secession of the Hungarian coastal region]. Századok 30 (1896): 617–33, 705–15, 804–22.

Zachariadou, Elizabeth A. “Manuel II Palaeologos on the Strife between Bāyezīd I and K.ād.ī Burhān al-Dīn Ah.mad.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 43 (1980): 471–81.

Zachariadou, Elizabeth A. “Süleyman çelebi in Rumili and the Ottoman chronicles.” Der Islam 60 (1983): 268–96.

Zachariadou, Elizabeth A. “Marginalia on the History of Epirus and Albania (1380–1418).” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 78 (1988): 195–210.

Zachariadou, Elizabeth A. “Notes on the Wives of the Emirs in Fourteenth-Century Anatolia.” In Frauen, Bilder und Gelehrte: Studien zu Gesellschaft und Künsten im Osmanischen Reich, 61–68. Istanbul: Simurg, 2002.

Zsigmondkori oklevéltár [Sigismundian cartulary], edited by Iván Borsa, Norbert C. Tóth, Bálint Lakatos, Elemér Mályusz, Gábor Mikó, Tibor Neumann. 13 vols. Budapest: MOL, 1951–2017.

1 The expression “impious alliance” to describe Christian collaboration with the Ottomans was used first by Pope Gregory XI in 1374. Having heard that Emperor John V (1341–1391) was paying tribute to Sultan Murad (1362–1389), he interpreted this arrangement as an “impious alliance” between Greeks and Turks directed against the believers of Christ: “inter Grecos et Turcos quedam impia colligatio adversus fideles Christi.” Halecki, Un Empereur de Byzance à Rome, 301 n. 3; Dennis, The Reign of Manuel II Palaeologus, 35; Ostrogorski, “Byzance, Etat tributaire de L’empire Turc,” 49−58. The same phrase was used later to label the agreement signed between King Francis I of France (1515–1547) and Sultan Suleyman (1520–1566) in 1536. See Isom-Verhaaren, Allies with the Infidel, passim; Devereux, “‘The ruin and slaughter of … fellow Christians’,” 115.

2 A good general overview of the main events and topics concerning the Hungarian succession crisis are found in: Engel, The Realm of St Stephen, 169–70, 195–202; and Süttő, “Der Dynastiewechsel Anjou-Luxemburg in Ungarn,” 79–87; cf. the older but still useful work of Huber, “Die Gefangennehmung der Königinnen Elisabeth und Maria von Ungarn,” 509–48.

3 On Sigismund’s early years as King of Hungary, see Mályusz, Kaiser Sigismund in Ungarn, 7–59; Hoensch, Kaiser Sigismund, 64–92.

4 Schönherr, “Nápolyi László trónkövetelésének külföldi vonatkozásai,” 237–66.

5 Miskolczy, “Nápolyi László (I. közlemény),” 330–50, 499–523.

6 Cutolo, Re Ladislao d’Angiò-Durazzo.

7 Hóman, Gli Angioini di Napoli in Ungheria, 492; Léonard, Gli Angioini di Napoli, 626. Cf. Pór and Schönherr, Az Anjou ház és Örökösei, 415.

8 Rački, “Pokret na slavenskom jugu koncem XIV i početkom XV stoljeća,” vol. 3. 149, vol. 4. 16–17; Klaić, Povjest Hrvata, vol. 2. 281; Šišić, Vojvoda Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić, 83–84. Cf. Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 69.

9 Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 37–54; Murphey, “Bayezid I’s Foreign Policy Plans and Priorities,” 177–215.

10 İnalcık, “The Ottoman Turks and the Crusade, 1329–1451,” 248; Zachariadou, “Marginalia on the History of Epirus and Albania (1380–1418),” 205.

11 For Visconti’s ties with the Ottomans, see Atiya, The Crusade of Nicopolis, 13; and for Genoa: Fleet, “The Treaty of 1387 between Murād I and the Genoese,” 13–33; Fleet, European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State, 4–12. See also: Fleet, “Turkish–Latin Diplomatic Relations in the Fourteenth Century,” 605–11; Fleet, “Turkish–Latin Relations at the End of the Fourteenth Century,” 131–37.

12 “Hunc Stephanum wayuodam preter cetera infanda sua facinora in lesam regie dignitatis maiestatem perpetrata eadem tempestate, cum rex Sigismundus post cladem sub Nicapoli receptam marittimis demorabatur in partibus, tale scelus commisisse accusabant. Etenim illum ad cesarem Thurcorum Pasaiithem nuncios misisse filiamque illius regi Ladislao, quem inducere conabatur, ea conditione, ut illi contra regem Sigismundum adiumento fieret, iugo matrimoniali ducere spopondisse et in huius documentum ingentia Thurcorum agmina Hungaricas in partes inter flumina Zawe et Drawe situatas induxisse gravesque ibidem per eosdem depopulationes edidisse dicebant. Ante hec Thurci nondum Hungaricas lustraverant terras. Iste fuit ingressus Thurcorum in Hungariam primus, eo tunc illi ingentes, quas cernimus in civitatibus Sirimiensibus, edidere vastitates, quas civitates etiam nunc loca illarum suis orbata edificiis non parvas fuisse testantur.” Thurocz, Chronica Hungarorum, vol. 1. 220; Thuróczy, Chronicle of the Hungarians, 69. For the earliest Ottoman attacks on Hungary, see Engel, “A török–magyar háborúk első évei 1389–1392,” 561–77; Engel, “Ungarn und die Türkengefahr zur Zeit Sigimunds (1387–1437),” 55–71; Rázsó, “A Zsigmond kori Magyarország és a török veszély, 1393–1437,” 403–41; Szakály, “Phases of Turco–Hungarian Warfare before the Battle of Mohács (1365–1526),” 65–111.

13 “Stephanum vaivodam preter alia gravissima scelera, que patrarat, id potissimum ausum fuisse memorant. Post Nicopolitanam cladem, cum in maritimis oris Sigismundus moram traheret, hunc ad Pasaythem Turcorum regem tabellarios misisse ferunt clamque cum eo de filie nuptiis cum Ladislao rege egisse et ea quidem condicione, ut generum ad eiicendum Pannonie regno Sigismundum copiis auxiliaribus et opibus adiuvaret; rem per internuncios eo adduxisse, ut sub hac spe affinitatis oblate, quam tantopere profanus barbarus appetebat, nonnullas Turcorum legiones ad labefactandas Sigismundi vites inter Savum Dravumque induxerit, unde magna Ungarie appendicibus calamitas vastatioque illata; hunc igitur primum Turcorum ingressum in inferiorem Pannoniam fuisse perhibent. Quare tunc Syrmiensis ager, qui tot urbibus oppidisque florebat, ita populatus et eversus est, ut vix nunc tot civitatum perpauca vestigia supersint.” Bonfinis, Rerum Ungaricarum Decades, vol. 3. 43.

14 Juhász, Thuróczy és Bonfini krónikájának összehasonlítása Zsigmondtól Mátyásig, 5–6, 24–27.

15 “[…] interim praetaxati viri perfidi, vterque Stephanus, vna cum Andrea, filio quondam Nicolai Vajuode, filii dicti Stephani, filii Laczk, praedicti de Debregesth fratre et fautoribus suis, ex cordiali prisco et mero doloso desiderio, cunctis nisu et nixu suis, anhelantes nos cum nostris fidelibus subditis antefatis, more et astutia subdoli serpentis, de dictis regnis nostris eliminare et excludere, obtentis a Ladislao, rege Apuliae, nato scilicet quondam Caroli Regis, huiusmodi litteris, vt iidem viri perfidi, vterque Stephanus, successores ipsius Laczk, in antefatis regnis nostris vicarii ipsius Ladislai regis essent generales et praecipue communiterque in dictis regnis et cum regnicolis nostris praefati vterque Stephanus, in persona et auctoritate ipsius Ladislai regis disponerent, ordinarent et donarent, ac sponderent, cuncta illa idem Ladislaus Rex acceptaret, ratificaret et perenniter extremo roboraret. Et vt celerius ac facilius annotati Stephanus Vajuoda, et alter Stephanus de Simonytornya, vna cum dicto Andrea, filio Nicolai Vajuodae, fratre eorum, ipsos regnicolas nostros ad eiusdem Ladislai regis beneplacitum et obedientiae commoda explenda potuissent subdere, et inclinati, nunciis suis ad Payzath, Turcorum Imperatorem, super eo, vt ipsius Payzath filiam dicto Ladislao regi matrimoniali foedere molirentur copulare et copulatos similiter litteris ipsius Payzath, imperatoris Turcorum, exinde prius obtentis, sacro regio diademate ipsius regni nostri coronare, indilate destinatis, validum et saeuissimum dictorum Turcorum coetum et faleratam cohortem ad territoria regni nostri, inter fluuios Drauae et Sauae existentia, hostiliter introducere et per eosdem incendia valida et homicidia, ac spolia grandia et detentiones, abductiones Nobilium et Ignobilium vtriusque sexus immensae pluritatis hominum perpetrari facere, nequiter veriti non fuerunt.” MNL OL DL 87 647. March 4, 1397; Codex diplomaticus Hungariae, vol. 10/2. 416–17; Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 1. no. 4656.

16 “[…] interim praetaxatis viris perfidis, vtrisque Stephano et Andrea, fratre ipsorum, idem Stephanus, dictus Vrdung, adherens cunctis ipsorum nisu et nixu, nos cum praefatis nostris fidelibus, nostro lateri adhaerentibus, ad instar subdoli serpentis, de dictis regnis nostris eliminare, excludere et exterminare moliebantur. Nam iidem vterque Stephanus, quibus idem Steph. Vrdung adhaeserat, nobis, vt prefertur, in naufragio procelloso laborantibus, huiusmodi litteras a Ladislao, rege Apuliae, nato scilicet quondam Caroli regis, procurantes obtinuerunt, vt iidem viri perfidi, vterque Stephanus, successores ipsius Laachk, in antefatis regnis nostris, vicarii ipsius Ladislai regis essent generales, et praecipue quidquid in dictis regnis cum regnicolis nostris ipse vterque Stephanus in persona et authoritate ipsius Ladislai regis disponerent, ordinarent et sponderent, cuncta illa idem Ladislaus rex acceptaret, ratificaret et perenniter ex nouo roboraret; et vt celerius et facilius annotati Stephanus, quondam Waywoda, et alter Stephanus de Simontornya, vna cum Andrea fratre ipsorum; nec non praefato Stephano, dicto Vrdung, ipsos regnicolas nostros ad ipsius Ladislai regis beneplacita et obedientiae commoda explenda potuissent flectere et inclinare, nunciis et syndicis suis ad Bajzath, Dominum Turcorum super eo, vt ipsius Bayzat filiam eidem Ladislao regi matrimoniali foedere copulare et post copulationem sacro regio diademate ipsius regni nostri immediate voluissent coronare, solicite destinatis; validum et saeuissimum dictorum Turcorum coetum et falleratam cohortem ad territoria regni nostri, inter fluuios Drauae et Zauae existentia, hostiliter introducere et per eosdem incendia, valida et homicidia ac spolia grandia et detentiones, abductionesque nobilium et ignobilium vtriusque sexus immensae pluralitatis hominum fidelium nostrorum, in regno et territorio nostris antefatis; prout haec cuncta ipsorum facinora fideles nostri dolorosis eorum gemitibus, nostro in conspectu reuera reprobarunt, nequiter perpetrari facere veriti non fuerunt.” MNL OL DL 8376. December 1, 1398; Codex diplomaticus Hungariae, vol. 10/2. 558–59; Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 1. no. 5603.

17 “[…] interim pretaxati viri perfidi uterque Stephanus unacum dicto Andrea, filio condam Nicolai voivode, filii dicti Stephani, filii predicti Lachk de Debregezth fratre et fautoribus suis, ex cordiali presto et mero doloroso desiderio cunctis nisu et nixu suis anhelantes, nos cum nostris fidelibus subditis antefatis more et adinstar subdoli serpentis, de dictis regnis nostris eliminare, excludere et exterminare, optentis a Ladislao rege Apulie, nato scilicet condam Karuli regis, huiusmodi literis, ut iidem viri perfidi uterque Stephanus, successores ipsius Lachk, in antefatis regnis nostris vicarii ipsius Ladislai essent generales et precipue quitquam in dictis regnis nostris cum regnicolis nostris prefati uterque Stephanus in persona et auctoritate ipsius Ladislai regis disponerent, ordinarent ac donarent et sponderent, cuncta illa idem Ladislaus rex ex novo roboraret, et ut celerius ac facilius annotati Stephanus vaivoda et alter Stephanus de Simontornya unacum dicto Andrea filio Nicolai vaivode fratre ipsorum eosdem regnicolas nostros ad eiusdem regis Ladislai beneplacita et obediencie comoda explenda potuissent subdere, flectere et inclinare, nunciis subditis ad Bayzat dominum Turcorum super eo, ut ipsius Bayzat filiam dicto Ladislao regi matrimoniali federe molirentur copulare et copulatos sacro regio dyademate ipsius regni nostri immediate valuissent coronare, indilate destinatis, validum et sevissimum dictorum Turcorum cetum et falleratam cohortem ad territoria regni nostri inter fluvios Drawe et Zawe existencia hostiliter introducere et per eosdem incendia valida et homicidia ac spolia grandia et detenciones abduccionesque nobilium et ignobilium utriusque sexus immense pluralitatis hominum fidelium nostrorum in regno et territoriis nostris antefatis, prout hec cuncta facinora fideles nostri dolorosis eorum gemitibus nostre in conspectu approbaverunt maiestatis, perpetrari facere nequiter veriti non fuerunt nec expavescere maluerunt.” MNL OL DL 92 259. January 6, 1401; Šišić, “Nekoliko isprava,” 131; Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 2/1. no. 802.

18 “[…] interim pretaxatis viris perfidis, vtrisque Stephano et Andrea fratribus ipsorum, idem Stephanus Vrdugh adherens nos cum prefatis nostris fidelibus, nostro lateri adherentibus, ad instar subdoli serpentis de dictis regnis nostris excludere, et exterminare machinabantur. Nam idem vterque Stephanus, quibus idem Stephanus Vrdugh toto posse, vt prefertur, nobis in naufragio periculoso laborantibus, huiusmodi litteras ab Ladislao rege Napulie, nato scilicet, quondam Karuli regis obtinuerant, vt ydem viri perfidi vterque Stephanus, successores ipsius Lachk, in antefatis regnis nostris vicary ipsius Ladislai regis essent generales, et precipue quidquid in dictis regnis cum regni incolis nostris ipsi vtrique Stephanus, in persona et auctoritate ipsius Ladislai regis disponerent, ordinarent, et sponderent, cuncta illa idem Ladislaus Rex acceptaret, ratificaret, et perhenniter ex nouo roboraret; et vt celerius et facilius annotati Stephanus Woyuoda et alter Stephanus de Simonytornya, vna cum Andrea fratre ipsorum, nec non prefato Stephano dicto Vrdurgh ipsos regnicolas nostros ad ipsius Ladizlai regis beneplacita et obediencie commoda complenda potuissent subdere, flectere, et inclinare, nunciis – – suis ad Bayzath Dominum Turcorum super eo, vt ipsius Bayzath filiam eidem Ladislao regi matrimoniali foedere copulare, et copulatam sacro diademate ipsius regni nostri immediate voluissent coronare, solicite destinatis validum et seuissimum Turcorum cetum et faleratam cohortem, ad territoria regni nostri inter fluuios Draue et Saue existentia hostiliter introducere, et per eosdem valida incendia, et homicidia, ac spolia grandia et detenciones abduccionesque nobilium et ignobilium, vtriusque sexus hominum, fidelium nostrorum in regno et territorio nostris antefatis, prout hec cuncta eorum facinora fideles nostri dolorosis eorum gemitibus nostri in conspectu reuerea comprobarunt, perpetrare facere veriti non fuerunt nequiter.” MNL OL DL 9404. May 4, 1408; Codex diplomaticus Hungariae, vol. 10/8. 485–86; Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 2/2 no. 6078.

19 “[…] nefandissimus Crucis Christi, immo totius Orthodoxae fidei, hostis et persecutor, Bajzath, Dominus Turcorum, capitalis nostrae Maiestatis aemulus […]” Codex diplomaticus Hungariae, vol. 10/4. 295–96. April 4, 1404.

20 Karbić, “Lackovići (Lackfi) iz plemićkog roda Hermán,” 21–29. See also: Majláth, “A Laczk nemzetség,” 21–29; Lázár, “A két Laczk család eredete,” 110–12; Karácsonyi, “A kerekegyházi Laczkfyak családfája,” 166–73. Cf. Hóman, Gli Angioini di Napoli in Ungheria, 460–62, 480–82, 505–9.

21 Probably a misreading of “de Laczhis.” Barone, “Notizie raccolte dai registri di cancelleria del re Ladislao di Durazzo,” 728. Cf. Wenzel, Magyar diplomacziai emlékek az Anjou-korból, vol. 3. 720. October 15, 1392.

22 Valente, “Margherita di Durazzo, vicaria di Carlo III e tutrice di re Ladislao,” vol. 43:184–85.

23 Borghese, “Les registres de la chancellerie angevine de Naples,” 171–82; Jamison, “Documents from the Angevin Registers of Naples,” 87–173; Capasso, Inventario cronologico-sistematico dei Registri Angioni, 384; Filangieri, L’Archivio di Stato di Napoli durante la seconda guerra mondiale; Palmieri, Degli archivi napolitani, 249–52.

24 Wenzel, Magyar diplomacziai emlékek az Anjou-korból, vol. 3. 720–22. October 18, 1392.

25 “Serenissimo Principi domino Pazait Imperatori Turcorum, maiori fratri nostro Ladislaus Dei gratia Rex etc. salutem et fraterne et sincere dilectionis affectum. Quod plerumque perfici atque refferri personaliter locorum distantia prohibet, inuentus, immo utilis et necessarius scribendi modus, ac Oratorum persepe fides exequitur laudabiliter atque supplet. Habentes itaque cum Serenitate Vestra certa conferre que — — — — distantes a nobis eidem Vestre Serenitate uerbo non possumus explicare; nec minus de viro nobili ... familiari et fideli nostro dilecto ab experto confisi, ea sibi sub credencie fide commisimus; qui de iussu et parte nostris illa Vestre Serenitati, ad eius se conferens presentiam veniet, est relaturus. Ideoque Imperialem Serenitatem Vestram sincere beniuolentie et fraterne dilectionis affectu precamur, quatenus ... predicti relatibus, quem in agendis nostris et alijs sibi expedientibus fiducialiter Vestre Serenitati reconmictimus, velit eadem Vestra Serenitas fidem tamquam nobis adhibere credentie, Nosque de statu vestro, quem impellente nos fraterno zelo et consanguinitatis nexu quo inuicem iungimur, prosperum audire et esse cupimus, vestris litteris ad nostri recreationem animj, cum habilitas modusque patuerint, informare, statum nostrum, ac Serenissime Domine domine Margarite eadem gratia dictorum Regnorum Regine reuerende genitricis, et illustris Johanne sororis nostrarum fore gratie omnium Conditoris incolumem, ipsi Vestre Serenitatj serie presentium intimantes. Has autem nostras litteras exinde fierj et magni nostri pendentis sigilli jussimus appensione munirj. Data Gayete in absentia Logothete et Prothonotarj Regni nostri Sicilie eiusque Locumtenentis per virum nobilem Donatum de Aretio Legum Doctorem etc. anno Dominj MCCCLXXXXII. die decimo octauo mensis Octubris prime indictionis, Regnorum nostrorum anno sexto.” Wenzel, Magyar diplomacziai emlékek az Anjou-korból, vol. 3. 720–21. October 18, 1392.

26 On Timurtaş, see İslâm Ansiklopedisi, s.v. “Timurtaş,” vol. 11. 372–74 (M.C. Şehabeddin Tekindağ). Unfortunately, there is no equivalent approach to the biography of Yakub Pasha.

27 Schreiner, Die Byzantinischen Kleinchroniken, vol. 1. 245. On the campaign, see Loenertz, “Pour l’histoire du Péloponèse au XIVe siècle (1382–1404),” 187.

28 “Ladizlaus Rex etc. illustri Amortas amico nostro carissimo salutem et sincere dilectionis affectum. Pro aliquibus agendis nostris honorem et statum nostrum concernentibus virum nobilem ... familiarem et fidelem nostrum dilectum ad presentiam Serenissimi Principis domini Pazait Imperatoris Turcorum maioris fratris nostri, ut quedam Eius Serenitatj nostri parte referat, presentialiter mictimus; cuj similiter certa, fidutialiter commisimus per eum vobis eadem nostri parte verbotenus referenda. Quapropter Illustrem Vestram Amicitiam presentium tenore precamur, quatenus eiusdem ... relatibus fidem tamquam nobis adhibere credentie, et ipsum tam in agendis nostris quam in alijs sibi expedientibus recommissum suscipere nostrj amore et contemplatione velitis. Vt ipsi Vestre Illustri Amicitie, ad cuius placida nos offerimus, propterea specialiter teneamur. Has autem nostras licteras exinde fierj et magni nostri pendentis sigilli jussimus appensione munirj. Data, Gaiete in absentia, Logothete et Prothonotarij Regni nostri Sicilie et eius Locumtenentis, per virum nobilem Donatum de Aretio etc. anno Dominj millesimo trecentesimo nonagesimo secundo die XVIII. mensis Octobris prime indictionis, Regnorum nostrorum anno sexto.” Wenzel, Magyar diplomacziai emlékek az Anjou-korból, vol. 3. 721–22. October 18, 1392.

29 Bryer, “Greek Historians on the Turks: the case of the first Byzantine–Ottoman marriage,” 471–93. Cf. Zachariadou, “Notes on the Wives of the Emirs in Fourteenth-Century Anatolia,” 61–68. See also: Werner, “Johannes Kantakuzenos, Umur Paša und Orhan,” 255–76; Gill, “John VI Cantacuzenus and the Turks,” 55–76.

30 Purković, Kćeri kneza Lazara, 107–12.

31 Qur’an, 2:221.

32 “Anno MCCCLXXXXIII. indictione II. die XI. Septembris. Capta: Quod scribatur ser Francisco Bembo Vicecapitaneo Culphi in hac forma: Intelleximus litteras vestras, quas misistis, nobis, datas supra Spalatum XXVIII. mensis Augusti, in quibus inter alia fit mentio, qualiter ille Nicolaus de Tragurio vobis dixit, quod habet in mandatis a Domino suo de faciendo poni cum uno brigentino unum Turchum in Apuleam, qui est Ambaxator domini Basaiti, et vadit ad dominum Regem Vencislaum pro complemento nuptiarum tractatarum inter ipsum dominum Regem et filiam dicti Basaiti...” ASV, Deliberazioni Misti del Senato, reg. 42, fol. 129r. September 11, 1393; Wenzel, Magyar diplomacziai emlékek az Anjou-korból, vol. 3. 742–43.

33 “[...] et quod vos estis dispositus ire ad apostandum eum in aquis Manfredonie, quia habetis, quod debeat illuc capitare; et si casus dabit, quod veniat in manus vestras, reddere sibi meritum pro suis bonis operibus. Unde consideratis omnibus, que consideranda sunt super ipsa intentione vestra, et maxime quod dictus Turchus Ambaxator non vadit in cursum, nec pro aliqua alia, quantum ad nos, causa inhonesta; fidelitati vestre cum nostris Consiliis scribimus et mandamus, quod in casu quod veniret in manus vestras eundo vel redeundo, vos non debeatis ei, nec suis in personis vel rebus, nec dicto brigentino aliquam iniuriam vel violentiam facere, sed debeatis ipsum honorare cum illis verbis et per illum modum, qui vestre sapientie videbitur, ita quod habeat causum laudandi nos, Dominium nostrum et vos; agendo vos taliter in executione istius nostri mandati, quod possitis apud nos de bona observantia commendari.” Ibid. On relations between Venice and Ladislaus of Naples, see Szalay, “Nápolyi László trónkövetelése és Velencze,” 557–64, 643–55, 751–59, 836–44.

34 Elizabeth A. Zachariadou believed that the proposed marriage alliance was not supposed to be concluded between Ladislaus and the daughter of Sultan Bayezid but rather between Ladislaus and the daughter of the famous marcher lord of Skopje, Pasha Yiğit. Zachariadou, “Marginalia on the History of Epirus and Albania (1380–1418),” 205. This confusion apparently emanated from the similarity between their names and the way that they were transcribed into Latin. Zachariadou, “Manuel II Palaeologos on the Strife between Bāyezīd I and K.ād.ī Burhān al-Dīn Ah.mad,” 479–80. Regardless of this opinion, other documents leave no doubt that King Ladislaus intended to marry into the Ottoman ruling family in order to further cement his alliance with the Sultan.

35 “Ma in questo mezzo egli non perdea tempo precioche volendo in ogni modo cacciar il nimico di casa, hauea tenuto pratiche d’imparentarsi con Baiazet principe de Turchi, quello che preso poi da Tamburlano, fini miseramente la vita sua in gabbia. Andò per ottener dal Pontefice dispensa di questo parentado in Roma; essendo tuttauia ambasciadori di Baiazet appo il Re. Ma come che la cosa non hauesse hauuto effetto più per la difficoltà ritrouata nella sicurtà del capitolare che per altro…” Ammirato, Gli opuscoli, 114–15.

36 “Secondo posso sentire, questo jorno venonno lettere alla Signoria, dallo Re di Bossina, il quale scrive della rotta diè alli Turchi, de’ quali furono morti più di Turchi VM, con alchuno preso. Apresso scrive di messer Gianbano, il quale andò allo gran Turcho a farsi suo huomo, e a fare il Turcho facesse uno altro re di Bossina; e così dice à fatto uno altro re, uno paesano. E questo re novello e messer Gianbano, e llo suo frate, con aiuto e gente ebbono dallo Turcho, sono venuti nelli paesi di Bossina per mettere in possesione questo re novello, e dice sono circha XLM, e alchuno paesano è co’ lloro. Scrive, secondo per l’altra v’avisai, come i’ Re d’Ungheria venne nelle contrade di Bossina, e come furono a parlare insieme, e ànno fatto buono acordo e legha insieme, e come questo re, fatto per lo Turcho e messer Gianbano, con tutta loro gente, si sono rinchiusi in certi boschi in luogho forte, nello quale luogho essi gli ànno asediati e stretti assai, per modo sperano coll’aiuto di Dio avranno victoria d’essi. Anchora come questo re e messer Gianbano ànno mandato uno fratello di messer Giabano e uno suo figliuolo allo Turcho per soccorso e per aiuto. Pensasi per tutti che per certo i due re andranno adosso allo Turcho, questo è; però lo Re scrive anchora come insino a mo’ ànno più di persone XLM, dove sono forestieri assai.” Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Carteggio Acciaiuoli II, no. 212. July 30, 1394. For more on this: Filipović, “Bosna i Turci za vrijeme kralja Stjepana Dabiše,” 273–301. Cf. Ćirković, “O Đakovačkom ugovoru,” 3–10.

37 “Johanni bano Machoviensi in regnis predictis nostro vicario generali […]” Rački, “Izvadci iz kralj. osrednjeg arkiva u Napulju,” 36. October 8, 1391. On the Horvat brothers and their rebellion, see Wilczek, “A Horváthy család lázadása, és a magyar tengervidék elszakadása,” 617–33, 705–15, 804–22.

38 The identity of this candidate for the royal throne of Bosnia is not directly revealed in the sources, however, it is highly likely that this was Ikach, son of Iktor de Oryaua. Filipović, “Bosna i Turci za vrijeme kralja Stjepana Dabiše,” 292–94. See also: Klaić, “Tko je to ‘rex Ikach’,” 12–15; Ćirković, Istorija srednjovekovne bosanske države, 176, 370, n. 4; Mályusz, “Ikach rex Bosnensis,” 259–67.

39 Truhelka, “Kroničke bilješke u ‘Liber Reformationum’ dubrovačke arkive,” 268.

40 Thallóczy, “Mantovai követjárás Budán 1395,” 283–92; Muresan, “Avant Nicopolis: la campagne de 1395 pour le contrôle du Bas-Danube,” 115–32; Salamon, “On the Credibility of an Item in Jan Długosz’s Chronicle,” 164–70.

41 On the reign of Queen Helen in Bosnia, see Fostikov, “Jelena Gruba, bosanska kraljica,” 29–50.

42 “Prima pars est de eundo ad maius conscilium pro elligendo ambassiatam nostrorum nobilium ad Regem Hostoyam nouiter creatus regem Bossine.” DAD, Reformationes, vol. 31, fol. 116v. June 19, 1398.

43 Filipović, “The Ottoman-Serbian Attack on Bosnia in 1398,” 119–25.

44 “Algune nouele de nouo non auemo de schriuer, saluo che chredemo, che miser lo Re desendera in tera de Chulmo, chome aueua spato li annbasatori de Turchi.” DAD, Diversa Cancellariae, vol. 32, ad fol. 234. March 12, 1399.

45 “Prima pars de dicendo consilio maiori quia castellanus Almixe nobis scripsit et quia Pasayt nobis misit dictum quod nos sumus una cum Bossignanis qui sunt concordati cum Turchis, essere bonum quod nostri ambaxiatori reperirent se apud nostrum dominum nostro.” DAD, Reformationes, vol. 31, fol. 134v. June 31, 1399.

46 Kranzieritz, “Változások a Délvidéken Nikápoly után,” 97–108.

47 “[…] quod Hervoya vayvoda, veluti perfidus alumnus proditionis, ductus malignitate, nostrorum immensorum regalium beneficiorum immemor, se ipsum in cetum infidelium crucis Christi, Turcorum videlicet, connumerare et coadunare […]” Smičiklas, Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, vol. 18. 345. June 2, 1398. For the biography of Voivode Hrvoje, see Šišić, Vojvoda Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić.

48 DAD, Lettere di Levante, vol. 1, fol. 23v; Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje i pisma, vol. 1. 448. April 8, 1400.

49 Ibid. Cf. Ćirković, “Poklad kralja Vukašina,” 153 n. 1; Fostikov, “O Dmitru Kraljeviću,” 56–57.

50 “Der koning von Napels steet gancz dornoch, das her keißer moge werden, und her hup am grosten an. Her meynte, her welde Rome czum ersten haben und den bobst, so hette hers als. Nu im das nicht mochte geen, nu hat her einen frede alhie gemacht, und wirt im der kirchen sodener czu czihen. Und gewynnet her Pyse in, so steet im Lucke czu gebot itczunt mit aller herschaft. So hat her noch von der kirchen wegen ynne Campania und Maritima. So mag her denne lichte Senas und Perus gewynnen und dornoch Viterbie. So hat her Rome alumb beyde czu wasser und czu lande, das her denne also, gan ims got, des ich nicht enhoffe, synen willen an aller dank behalden mag. Mir hat gesagt ein erbar apt us dem konigrich, der nu mit den sendeboten wider kegen Rome quam, das des Turken son, der dem Czemmerlan entging, als her dem alden öberlag, syne boten habe by dem konige von Napels und hat im gelobt: welle her einen bunt und fruntschaft mit im machen, her welle im helfen [mit] all synem vermogen, das her konig czu Ungern sulle werden. Und die boten syn noch im lande. Was her mit in wirt schaffen, des weys man noch nicht. Man sagt ouch alhie vor wor, das derselbe Turke an sand Johans tage, als der konig von Ungern mit herczoge Wilhelm von Osterich, dem got gnade, vorricht würde, mit einem grossen heere in das lant czu Bosna, das kegen Ungern gehort, were gekomen und hette aldo großen schaden gethon und hette (von dannen) me denn 14 000 cristen von dannen lassen tryben, und lege noch aldo mit großer macht.” Koeppen, Die Berichte der Generalprokuratoren des Deutschen Ordens an der Kurie, vol. 2. 79–80. August 28, 1406. For the activities and reign of Prince Suleyman in the Balkans, see Dennis, “The Byzantine–Turkish Treaty of 1403,” 72–88; Zachariadou, “Süleyman çelebi in Rumili and the Ottoman chronicles,” 268–96; Kastritsis, The Sons of Bayezid, passim.

51 The wars between Bosnia and Hungary in the first decade of the fifteenth century are described by Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 119–68.

52 See the contrasting interpretation presented in: Lovrenović, “Modelle ideologischer Ausgrenzung,” 18–55.

53 “[…] per huiusmodi nostros infideles ceterosque nonnullos rebelles et inimicos nostros videlicet Horwoyam, Wlkchith ac Bosnenses […] adducta quasi innumerabili pluralitate perfidorum turcorum et Bosnensium scismaticorum ad dominum et possessiones ipsorum fidelium nostrorum, qui commissis ibidem predis, spoliis, rapinis, adulteriis, stupris, hominum interemptionibus, tandemque totale dominium et possessiones in favillam redactis abscesserunt […]” Thallóczy and Barabás, Codex diplomaticus comitum de Blagay, 220. April 22, 1406. “Quia nonnulli Turcy, Boznenses et alii nostri emuli et rebelles coadunati regnum nostrum latesscentes et devastantes iam hostiliter subintrarunt […]” Zsigmondkori oklevéltár, vol. 2/1 no. 5036. October 4, 1406.

54 “[…] vtputa Turcorum et aliarum perfidarum nacionum, nec non Paterinorum Boznensium a parte Regni Bozne […]” Wenzel, “Okmánytár Ozorai Pipo történetéhez,” 25. December 7, 1407. “[…] nonnullorum Infidelium Crucis Christi nostrorum, vt puta et regni nostri aemulorum, signanterque Turcorum, et Boznensium […]” Codex diplomaticus Hungariae, vol. 10/4. 609. December 9, 1407.

55 “[…] contra nonnullos nostros et regni nostri emulos, videlicet Boznenses et turcos […]” Barabás, Codex diplomaticus Teleki de Szék, vol. 1. 339–40. May 26, 1408. “[…] dictorum nostrorum emulorum Turcorum videlicet et Boznensium tirannicam rebellionem […]” Šišić, “Nekoliko isprava,” 319. December 29, 1408.

56 “[…] demum vero pridem in exercitu nostro regali contra nonnullos nostros et ipsius regni aemulos, vtputa Turcas Bosnenses et alias nationes barbaricas pro tunc instaurato […]”Codex diplomaticus Hungariae, vol. 10/5. 810. September 29, 1417. “[…] primum contra et adversus perfidissimos Turcom, crucis Christi inimicos, et alias nationes barbaricas et scismaticas, versus partes inferiores Themesienses, demum vero contra Boznenses, puta tunc nostros infideles et rebelles […]” Fejérpataky, Magyar czimeres emlékek, vol. 1. 49. March 29, 1418. “[…] contra sevissimos Turcos, crucis christiani persecutores, presertim vero adversus Bosnenses, nostros eotunc et regni nostri notorios emulos et rebelles […]” Thallóczy, Studien zur Geschichte Bosniens und Serbiens im Mittelalter, 354. September 5, 1425. “[…] quod dum alias quondam Zandal wayuoda de Bozna paterinae iniquitatis alumpnus, non paucis Boznensibus necnon Turcis, crucis Christi et totius orthodoxae fidei persecutoribus, nostris videlicet et regnorum nostroroum aemulis caterva falerata congregatis […]” Thallóczy and Áldásy, A Magyarország és Szerbia közti összeköttetések oklevéltára, 112. September 27, 1437. Cf. Lovrenović, “Modelle ideologischer Ausgrenzung,” 18–55.

57 Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571, vol. 1. 403.

58 Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje i pisma, vol. 1. 276–77. August 5, 1409. Cf. Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda bosanski Sandalj Hranić Kosača, 195.

59 “[…] quod dictum castrum Ostroviz non accepimus in displicentiam dicti domini regis, sed habentes et cognoscentes, illud esse in manibus cuiusdam domini Sandalis capitanei Bosinensis, qui habet multos Turcos secum, et cuius Sandalis dictum castrum ex patrimonio erat, ne capitaret ad manus aliorum et potissime Teucrorum, pro bono universe christianitatis et pro bono nostri dominii illud emimus […]” Ljubić, Listine, vol. 6. 139–40. February 10, 1411. Cf. Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija, 131; Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda bosanski Sandalj Hranić Kosača, 195.

60 “[…] et precipue nunc, quum Sandali habet secum, ut dicitur, VII mille Turchorum […]” Ljubić, Listine, vol. 6. 139–40. May 25, 1411. Cf. Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda bosanski Sandalj Hranić Kosača, 196.

* This work has benefited from the support of the Canton Sarajevo Ministry for Education, Science and Youth (Project: Bosnian–Ottoman relations at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century).

2019_2_Zečević

pdf

Volume 8 Issue 2 CONTENTS

Notevole larghezza, notizie così gravi e gelose and un uomo che amava spacciarsi: Human Resources of Diplomatic Exchange of King Alfonso V of Aragon in the Balkans (1442–1458)*

Nada Zečević
Royal Holloway, University of London
ZecevicN
@ceu.edu

During his reign in Naples, between 1442 and 1458, King Alfonso V of Aragon exchanged a series of diplomatic communications with the Christian East, namely with Byzantine Emperors John VIII (1425–1448) and Constantine XI Dragases (1449–1453) and their close kin, but also with the most prominent feudal lords of the Balkan peninsula (Herzeg Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, George Castrioti Skanderbey, etc.). The basic historical details of these missions are largely known to modern scholarship, which usually regards them as part of the king’s attempt to secure individual allies in his planned anti-Ottoman crusade and expansion towards the imperial throne in Constantinople. Scholarship, however, is limited on the details of these relations, partly due to the fragmentary nature of the sources and partly because of the missions’ secret character. In this paper, I am attempting to learn more about King Alfonso’s attention to the Balkans by observing the human resources which sustained not just his missions, but also other forms of the kingdom’s exchange across the Adriatic. The inquiry, which is based on the study of the available prosopographic data concerning individuals who appear to have been prominent in this, indicates that the basic circle which sustained this process consisted of Catalan bankers and highly ranked notaries, all resident in Naples since Alfonso’s access to the throne of the kingdom in 1442, but this circle also received several local commoners loyal to the king, with Simone Caccetta as their leading figure. His networks show that the king’s diplomatic exchange with the Balkans was largely characterized by a specific form of corruption, by which the bankers who invested their money in the king’s diplomatic activities in the Balkans received lucrative positions in the royal customs and local administration of Puglia, which they further used to enhance their access to the kingdom’s economic exchange with the Balkans and, consequently, to augment their wealth. This process was heavily scrutinized by Simone Caccetta, who involved in it an entire circle of small traders and soldiers directly loyal to him, thus affirming their positions but also his own position in the Aragon service and Aragon courtly society.

Keywords: Alfonso V of Aragon, Aragon Naples, diplomacy, Medieval Balkans, feudal lords in the medieval Balkans, prosopography

The interest taken by King Alfonso V Aragon (1442–1458) in the eastern Mediterranean, a topic familiar to modern historiography, is most commonly perceived as an important element of his “imperialism.”1 Centrally focused on his plans to defend and restore Constantinople from the Ottomans and to maintain commercial ties with the Fatimids of Egypt and other Ottoman rivals in the East (see Map 1),2 Alfonso’s political ambitions, however, can be debated for their meager results.3 This is particularly the case with the Balkan peninsula, where he made various attempts to tie the local lords of the region to the Kingdom in Naples, even though he was facing diverse political challenges from Florence, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Republic of Venice, all of which were aspiring to assert control and influence over the region (see Map 2). Alfonso’s ambitions in the Balkan peninsula can also be debated from the perspective of the primary evidence, since the sources attesting to his interest in this region give only the basic details of its chronology and prosopography, largely hiding the details of its content behind claims of diplomatic confidentiality.4 To find out more about how the king’s diplomacy towards the Balkans was modeled, in this paper, I focus on the structures that sustained his diplomatic activities in this region. What were the human resources with which the king attempted to assert his interests in the Balkans, and how did their use reflect his ambitions in this region?

The Diplomacy of Alfonso V of Aragon in the Balkans (1442–1458): A Prosopographic Approach to its Structure and Dynamics

In focusing on the prominent figures of Aragon diplomacy and how they contributed to the king’s political presence in the Balkans, it is important to note that the primary evidence on this issue is greatly limited due to the destruction of the Neapolitan State archives (Archivio di Stato di Napoli) in 1943. Hence, a more detailed approach can be made by studying some particular figures involved in Alfonso’s diplomacy. This approach focuses on the recorded micro-details of these people’s lives and career agencies, which might, at first sight, give the impression of a patchy descriptive narrative concerning some outstanding individuals. However, when these people’s daily routines and connections mentioned in the remaining sources are put together and compared to other materials concerning Aragon rule in Naples, they offer a more detailed picture of the resources on which the king’s diplomacy replied in the Balkan peninsula.

Another important assumption for the analysis of the Aragon diplomacy in the Balkans is that it had a varying dynamics. Its key stages were largely influenced by the Ottoman advancement in the region and the attempts of Christian Europe to prevent these advances, but it was also shaped in part by the king’s relations with the major Christian powers of the time, namely the Papacy, the Republic of Venice, Florence, and Milan. Certainly, more intensive stages of these relations were the periods around the Varna “Crusade” (1444), its aftermath, and the second Kosovo Polje battle (1447–1448), the final Ottoman offensive against Constantinople (1451–1453) and its aftermath, when Popes Nicholas V and Calixtus III (1455–1458) called for the restoration of the Byzantine Empire. Each of these stages, however, reflected different political aims of the participating Christian forces, so the king’s diplomatic efforts in the Balkans varied accordingly in their structures and agendas. The prosopography of his missions shows that his focus in 1443–1444 was on the Byzantine Palaiologoi in Constantinople and on the Peloponnese, from where he received Greek diplomats who were asking for help and support (the “incoming” diplomatic activities for the Aragon administration),5 while in the 1450s, it was the Aragon representatives who were more frequent visiting individual lords of the Adriatic and its hinterland in the Balkans (“outgoing diplomacy”), attempting to attract them more formally to the Aragon throne.

The Diplomacy of Alfonso V of Aragon in the Balkans (1442–1458): Emissaries and Visitors

Certainly, the most visible structure of the Aragon apparatus that dealt with the Balkans was the king’s diplomats.6 The ambassadors from Aragon Naples to the region came with particular frequency in 1451–1453, when they sought to establish firm alliances with individual lords in order to ensure background loyalty and support for the “rescue” of Constantinople from the Ottomans.7 These embassies were highly confidential, so it is of no wonder that the Aragon diplomats sent to the region in this period were figures who had the king’s greatest confidence and who had been chosen from his closest entourage. Most of them were Catalans by origin, some even still linked with Barcelona or other parts of the Aragon dominion in the western Mediterranean. For their diplomatic missions, they were prepared and surveyed by the royal council,8 which checked various conditions according to which individual lords could become the formal vassals of the Aragon Kingdom in Naples.9 The most notable figure among these envoys was Alfonso’s protonotary, Arnaldo Fonoleda (Arnau Fenolleda), renown as the king’s treaty-maker for his detailed follow-up of the kingdom’s political and foreign affairs. Originating from a Catalan notary family of Barcelona and initially educated by the king’s main secretary Johannes Olzina (Joan Olzina) (who largely focused his attention on Sicily), Fonoleda accompanied Alfonso on his Italian travels, acting on some occasions as his creditor, too.10 Between 1444 and 1455, Fonoleda surveyed or wrote the majority of Alfonso’s communications with the Balkan lords, and in some situations, he even appeared there as the king’s envoy.11 Another distinguished Catalan in Alfonso’s notary service who participated in the king’s diplomatic missions relating to the Balkans was Francesco Mortorell (Francesc Martorell). His family also had origins in Catalonia, namely the juridical district Sant Feliu de Llobregat near Barcelona, from where it further expanded to Morella (today’s region of Castillón) and other parts of the Kingdom of Valencia and the Baleares. In the mid-1440s, Mortorell recorded Alfonso’s diplomatic activities with Herzeg Stjepan Vukčić Kosača (1435–1466). He then advanced to the administration of the kingdom’s customs, where he became a portulan master (before 1456/7), and, in this year, the “baiulus of the Jews.”12 Other, less elevated notaries of the Catalan origin involved in Alfonso’s diplomacy dealing with the Balkans were Arnaldo di Castello (1447) and Giovanni Felin (1451).13

Local commoners from the Italian towns were also deployed in some of these missions. Among them, a notable figure was Filipo Pantella of Piacenca, the king’s envoy, mentioned in Albania in June 1451.14 His recruitment seems to have greatly relied on his social connections and familial links across the Adriatic. Pantella’s brother traded in Ragusa with acorns, while several of his relatives resided in Ragusa’s immediate neighborhood, on the island of Curzola, in the town of Cattaro, and at marketplaces at Narenta and Gabella, all ensuring regular trade exchange between the two sides of the Adriatic and focusing in particular on the shores of the Aragon kingdom in Puglia and the ports of Bari and Barletta.15 Filipo Pantella was a frequent traveler of the era, and he maintained close links even with Florentine traders whom Alfonso had expelled from the kingdom between 1447 and 1453 during his conflict with the Florence’s then ally, the Republic of Venice. Such connections with “adversaries” furnished Pantella with various news and intelligence which the king certainly needed in order to plan his activities in the region.16

To accomplish his diplomatic agenda, the king occasionally also relied on incoming ambassadors and envoys sent by his counterparts to negotiate with him. Some of these envoys were destined to visit other European courts too (Milan, Burgundy, Habsburgs), and with such mandates, they represented a rich source of intrinsic diplomatic information collected from multiple parts of the Christian West. On several occasions, the collaboration of these envoys with Alfonso seems to have been arranged by his effective bribes,17 while some of these informants may also have been motivated to collaborate because of personal loyalties and familial connections they had with the Aragon realm. One such case was that of the envoy of the Byzantine Emperor, a certain Pietro Rocco (Ritzo, Rotzo) of Salerno (October 12, 1443), whose close family originated from the Aragon-governed Italian South,18 like that of Giovanni Spagnolus, diplomatic representative of Constantine Palaiologos in early 1452, whose family was scattered around the Aragon domain between Catalonia and Italy.19 Other informants of the king from the Byzantine East were Greeks or Italians who served various Latin lords in Greece, as well as the Palaiologoi in the Peloponnese.20 Among these figures, a remarkable one was Athanasius Laskaris, the offspring of a high aristocratic Byzantine family who resided on the Ionian islands at the time, which were governed by Latin lord Leonardo III Tocco (1448/9–1479).21 Laskaris was recorded in Naples in 1451 while representing Despot Demetrios Palaiologos (1449–1460), on which occasion he promised loyalty to the Aragon king in the capacity of a subject of Leonardo III Tocco.22 The case of Ioannes Torsellus was similar. Torsellus was an envoy of the Byzantine Emperor originating from a Venetian family which exported wine from the Greek islands to the European West. Alfonso’s officials designated Torsellus as a man ready to show off and plot, hinting at his openness to share information about the situation in Byzantium, but also strategic information he exchanged with Western Christian rulers he met on his travels, such as the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good (1419–1467).23 Between 1455 and 1458, Alfonso’s diplomats made wide use of the Greek Humanist Nicolaus Secundinos (Sagundinus) (1402?–1464), then subject to Venetian dominion in Crete, who visited Naples in the entourage of Matthew Palaiologos Asen, governor of Corinth at the time (1454–1458). In Naples, where his translation of Plutarch had already been highly appreciated, Secundinos’ practical knowledge of the Ottomans and their military resources was inserted into Panormita’s translation of Onosander’s Strategikos, while Secundinos’ glorifications of the king’s model of “power pedagogy” influenced the education of future Christian rulers.24

The Diplomacy of Alfonso V of Aragon in the Balkans (1442–1458): Building up Human Resources

To support his emissaries to the Balkans and to reward his informants from the Balkans, King Alfonso had to expand his material resources significantly. This is why, in the early 1450s, he started reinforcing ship-building in Naples’ marina, developing from 1452 another new ship-building facility in Trani, where galleys and caravels were built for traffic across the Adriatic. The funds for this endeavor were provided by the Aragon Escribano de ración, a royal office surveying the king’s expenditures (including those in the Balkans), tightly controlled by the king’s loyal Catalans.25 Similarly to a model previously set by Angevin rulers Charles II (1285–1309) and Robert the Wise (1309–1343), who, at the beginning of the fourteenth century used Florentine banking finances (largely those of Niccolo Acciauoli, their renown Florentine banker-ally) when planning their “Crusading” attempts on Sicily and in the Byzantine East, to finance his activities in the Balkans, the Aragon king turned to the banking institutions of Naples. Since 1442, these institutions had largely been held by his Catalan compatriots, who, in exchange for the money, received important privileges and posts in the royal administration, thus infiltrating the kingdom’s bureaucracy. There, they further privatized their new positions, using them to augment their private cash flows. Particularly influential figures in this circle were several bankers who maintained close familial and business connections with Barcelona and some other parts of the Aragon dominion (e.g. Sicily), while leading their businesses in Naples. One of them was Piero Cimart (Piro Cimert, Pere Cimert), whose wealth had originally relied upon his trading links with the knights of St. John, and a bank he had established in Naples around the time when Alfonso Aragon came to power (1442).26 Cimart was exceptionally loyal to Alfonso, and he financed the king’s takeover of the throne in Naples from the Balzo Orsini rival fraction. Thus, it is not surprising that, in 1447, after the king expelled the Florentine merchants who had previously credited the throne (1447–1452) from Naples, Cimart took on the supply of the king’s larger credits.27 Specifically in Alfonso’s Balkan affairs, in 1451, Cimart financed the royal gifts to Andreas, Bishop of Albania, assigning, on one occasion, 72 ducats to cover the purchase of luxurious garments for the Bishop and 25 ducats for his salvus conductus to Albania.28 In the same year, Cimart also provided 500 ducats in cash to bribe Athanasius Lascaris, the aforementioned Tocco subject from the Ionian islands, then in the service of Despot Demetrios Palaiologos.29

Yet the key figure to assume control of the royal finances and the king’s policy in the Balkans was an Italian from the local neighborhood of Trani, Simone Caccetta (Caczetta, Cazzetta). He started his career in the early 1420s30 as an ambitious commoner on a temporary juridical post in the small provincial center of Trani.31 Caccetta’s swift ascent certainly coincided with the beginning of Alfonso’s rule in the Italian South (1442), when he, like Cimart, supported the king against Giovanni Antonio Balzo Orsini (1393?–1463).32 Demonstrating exceptional skills in stirring urban uprisings and creating civil unrest against his master’s rivals,33 Caccetta gained lavish profits from his loyalty (Figs. 1–3), first with the position as Trani’s notary,34 then with a royal donation of an important hereditary income of 1/3 of taxes to iron and steel circulated through this town. By the end of the 1440s, Caccetta can be seen as financing the king with 3,000 ducats, for which he received the influential position of the magistro portolano e secreto per la Puglia e Capitanata.35 From this position, he was able to control royal diplomatic communication with the Balkan lords directly,36 supplying, for instance in 1452, a “rescue” operation for Herzeg Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, when Kosača claimed his town of Novi was isolated and called for help to reinforce its defenses.37 In April 1453, Caccetta’s finances backed his personal participation in Alfonso’s diplomatic negotiations with Manuel Angellos, envoy of Despot Thomas Palaiologos (1428–1460) of the Peloponnese, when he was also in charge of providing the despot additional supplies.38

The diplomacy of Alfonso V of Aragon in the Balkans (1442–1458):
The Uses of Human Resources

The Aragon conflict with the Venetians in the early 1450s allowed Caccetta to enhance his personal status by developing some important private networks.39 The first such network was his connection with the kingdom’s most powerful administrators and nobility of the Neapolitan residential quarter (seggio) of Nido (1451–1452),40 resulting in his knightly title of miles. This title eventually allowed him to attain the high post of a regius consiliarius and become part of the king’s closest entourage, which, consequently, prompted further familial attachments to the core aristocracy of Naples’ Nido quarter, such as the families Zurlo, Pignatelli, and Barille. Caccetta’s other network was of a business character, stemming from his position as the master of the ports. Through this network, Caccetta kept under direct control all custom officers dealing with the commercial circulation and supplies going to and coming from the Balkans. He also controlled local traders of agricultural goods (cereals, salt, cheese) from the region’s large farms (massarie) and those who handled the exchange of the strategic natural resources (metals such as steel and iron), all streaming through the kingdom’s southern Italian ports to the Balkan lords,41 thus turning his private strategic connections into a full-scale “customs’ diplomacy.”42 Caccetta softly racketeered with many of the traders involved in this circulation by taking them under his “protection” while using their money to finance the supplies he organized for the Balkans, giving his protégées, in return, access to the lower positions in the customs’ office.43 One of his favorites was Catalan merchant Dalmatino Fenoles (Dalmau Fenoses),44 who, in November 1453, Caccetta ordered be supplied with luxurious materials by Ragusan diplomat Junius Gradić, then in the service of the Serbian “Kralis” (Despot George Branković, 1427–1456).45 Following a number of several other similar favors, Fenoles was granted a post in the local royal administration, ultimately ending up at the high position of the kingdom’s treasurer.46 The ascent of Michael Freperios and Michael Caretefa was similar. They were both required by Caccetta in 1451–1452 to supply ten galleys of the Neapolitan royal admiral, Bernardo Villamarin (Bernat Villamari), which went out on a “privateering campaign” against the Venetians and the Ottomans in the Adriatic and the Aegean.47 One other merchant, a Gaspare Fabricius, likewise, dispatched two ships with grain to Constantinople in May 1450, to be later awarded, at Caccetta’s intervention, with control of the kingdom’s office of rationum.48

Following the fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453 and Alfonso’s plans to lead a crusading retaliation against the Ottomans, the circle of Alfonso’s homines novi centred around Simone Caccetta was enlarged by some new members. Their background was in the military or the royal navy, and they had personal experience in challenging the Ottomans on the battlefield. For these services, like Caccetta’s protégées, these men were granted privileges which allowed them to enter the royal administration. One of them, Johannes de Nava, a skilled ship patron, ended up as the supervisor of the royal chamber (camerlench); another, Comes of Molise Campobassa, regularly patrolled the waters around the Peloponnese in 1456, prompting Alfonso’s idea of the “Ottoman antemurale,” functioning in the Byzantine east to defend the Italian shores.49 Another prominent favorite of the Aragon king was Alfonso’s familiaris and creditor, Bernal Vaquer, who in May 1451 led an Aragon mission designed to install the Neapolitan troops in the Albanian capital Krujë.50 Following this mission, he was granted the post of portolano for Puglia (subordinate to the magister portulanus), and he was put in charge and given immediate control of the ships circulating around the coast of the kingdom.51 Vaquer originated from a military family which recruited its members for the Aragon missions in the east. Many of them were substantially rewarded for their services. One of them was Vaquer’s brother Balthazar, captain of Molfetta, who commanded a galleon which patrolled the waters and remained ready to confront the Ottomans. He later received a post which controlled the customs’ in Giovinazzo, which, following the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, became one of the key entry posts for the Balkan refugees and news streaming to the realm from the East. In 1456, Vaquer’s relative Angelo took over this post, and he later left it as part of his inheritance to his son Nardò, thus challenging the traditional practice according to which the control of these incomes belonged to the king. The positions of these Vaquers enabled them to establish direct links with the Greeks of the Aegean, and it is through these links that, following Alfonso’s death in 1458 and the family’s rebellion against the king’s successor Ferrante, they arranged a refuge on Paphos for several of their kinsmen.

The participation of Alfonso’s men in arms in the local customs and offices of rationals was closely surveyed by Caccetta. His control extended to officers of a lesser rank, whom the king also directed to the East to perform confidential military observations and preparations. Among them was Nunyo Mexia, a soldier sent in winter 1455 to observe and estimate the defense resources of the Peloponnese and Albania.52 Another one, Rinaldo del Duca, had to train and incite Albanians to launch an uprising in January 1456, for which task Caccetta provided him with 300 ducats from the royal treasury. Caccetta also surveyed the engagement of condottieri, foreign mercenaries who entered the royal army from all over Europe. The sources reveal among them an Italian named Giovanni de Giotto, German head of the ballisters Gisert Rasfon, and an Englishman, John of Newport. In August 1455, two of them, Leonardo Besutoso of Naples and Jean Calala, found themselves in Albania as the king’s deputies, waiting to receive supplies from the kingdom. The supplies consisted of food and weapons, and they were delivered through Trani, as had already become usual practice. A galleon which reached these soldiers was fully loaded with fish, vegetables, water, and candles, all amounting to 830 ducats worth of cargo, thus marking the beginning of Alfonso’s “crusade” on the sea. As usual, the supplies for the kingdom’s forces on this occasion were arranged and closely monitored by Simone Caccetta, this time with finances coming from a new type of a rising favorite, Calabrian merchant Sirilo Gallinaro—not the Catalan, but, like him, originating from the local milieu.53

Conclusion

What do these prosopographic details tell us about the human resources which managed and sustained the king’s relations with the Balkan lords? Most importantly, they show that the king’s diplomacy did not rely on emissaries who were occasionally sent or received. Among the people on whom he depended, his secretaries and members of the nobility and clergy were the most apparent, as it a characteristic element of medieval diplomatic practice. The king’s diplomatic apparatus, instead, involved a far wider and more elaborate local network operating within the kingdom (most apparently in Puglia, which had immediate trading and navigation connections across the Adriatic), a group consisting primarily of his personal favorites, who traded wealth for political power—skillful banking Catalan entrepreneurs, but also some loyal commoners originating from southern Italy. By winning the favor of the king or his closest entourage through the funds they invested in his relations with the Balkan lords, these entrepreneuring homines novi basically entered the royal bureaucracy through a special form of corruption which converted their investments of capital to direct control of the kingdom’s provincial resources, taxes, and customs, all directly used in the king’s diplomatic activities and the related trade across the Adriatic. Coordinated and structured in detail by Simone Caccetta, the king’s most prominent official involved in his Balkan affairs, this group also operated as a parallel structure which nominally controlled diplomatic exchange across the Adriatic for the king, directly augmenting Caccetta’s interests and private funds, as well as the resources of other involved bankers, lower-ranked local traders, and military involved in this group through Caccetta, who thus used the king’s aspirations in the Balkans for their own positioning in the royal administration of Puglia and the courtly society of Aragon Naples.

Bibliography

Archival sources

Archivio di Stato di Napoli. Regia Camera della sommaria. Processi. Pandetta

generale o seconda, sec. XVI–1808. (ASNA)

 

Printed sources and secondary literature

“Frammenti di Cedole della Tesoreria di Alfonso I (1446–1448),” edited by Castello Salvati. In Fonti Aragonesi. Vol. 4. Napoli: Academia Pontaniana, 1964.

“Frammento del Registro Curie Summariae,” edited by Biagio Ferrante. In Fonti Aragonesi. Vol. 8. Napoli: Academia Pontaniana, 1971.

Abulafia, David. The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms: The Struggle for Dominion, 1200–1500. London and New York: Taylor & Francis Groups, 2016.

Ad serenissimum principem et invictissimum regem Alphonsum Nicolai Sagundini oratio, edited by Christian Caselli. Roma: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 2012.

Aloisio, Mark. “Alfonso V and the Anti-Turkish Crusade.” In The Crusade in the Fifteenth Century: Converging and Competing Cultures, edited by Norman Housley. Farnham: Ashgate, 2017: 64–74.

Beltrani, Giovanni. Cesare Lambertini e la società famigliare in Puglia durante i secoli XV e XVI. Vol. 1 (documenti). Napoli, etc.: Vecchi, 1884.

Bisson, T. N. The Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

Cerone, Francesco. “La politica Orientale di Alfonso d’Aragona.” Archivio storico per le province napoletane. Vols. XXVII: 1 (1902): 3–93; XXVII: 2 (1902): 380–456; XXVII: 3 (1902), 555–634.

Cerone, Francesco. “La politica Orientale di Alfonso d’Aragona.” Archivio storico per le province napoletane. Vol. XXVIII: 1 (1903): 154–212.

Ćirković, Sima. Herceg Stjepan Vukčić Kosača i njegovo doba [Herzeg Stjepan Vukčić Kosača and his epoch]. Belgrade: Naučno delo, 1964.

Ciuffreda, Antonio. “Massari e mercanti di piazza: Storie di famiglia e percorsi individuali nelle medie città pugliesi tra sei e settecento.” Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 112, no. 1 (2000): 175–79.

Cuadrada Majó, Coral. “Política italiana de Alfonso V de Aragón (1420–1442).” Acta historica et archaeologica mediaevalia 7–8 (1986–1987): 269–309.

Curiosa lettera di Giovanni Torzelo a Filippo di Borgogna, che ò poi una memoria complete intorno ad una spedizione decisiva contro i Turchi, edited by Charles Schefer. In Le voyage d’outre-tner Bertrandon de la Bronquière. Paris: Leroux, 1892: 263–68.

de Capmany y Montpalau, Antonio. Memorias históricas sobre la marina, comercio y artes de la antigua ciudad de Barcelona. Madrid: de Sancha, 1779.

Del Treppo, Mario. I mercanti Catalani e l’espanzione della Corona d’Aragona nel secolo XV. Napoli: L’Arte tipografica, 1972.

Del Treppo, Mario. I mercanti catalani e l’espansione della corona aragonese nel secolo XV. Napoli: Libreria Scientifica Editrice, 1968.

Delle Donne, Fulvio. Alfonso il Magnanimo e l’invenzione dell’Umanesimo monarchicho. Ideologia e strategie di legittimazione alla corte aragonese di Napoli. Roma: Istituto per il Medio Evo, 2015.

Dinić Knežević, Dušanka. Petar Pantela – trgovac i suknar [Peter Pantella – merchant and draper]. Novi Sad: Filozofski fakultet, 1970.

Dinić, Mihailo. Iz dubrovačkog arhiva [From the archive in Dubrovnik]. Vol. 3. Belgrade: Naučno delo, 1967.

Dover, Paul M. “Royal Diplomacy in Renaissance Italy: Ferrante D’Aragona (1458–1494) and his Ambassadors.” Mediterranean Studies 14 (2005): 57–94.

Duran I Duelt, Daniel. “De l’autonomia a la integració: la participació siciliana en el commerce oriental als segles XIV e XV.” In Maria Teresa Ferrer I Mallol, Josefina Mutgé I Vives, and Manuel Sánchez Martínez, eds. La corona Cataloaragonesa e il seu entorn Mediterrani a la baixa edad mitjana: Actes del Seminari celbrat a Barcelona els dies 27 i 28 de novembre de 2003. Barcelona: Consell superior d’investigacions cientifíques, Institutcio Milà I Fontanals, Department d’Estudis Medievals, 2005.

Figliuolo, Bruno. “La Terrasanta nel quadro della politica orientale di Alfonso V d’Aragona.” Nuova rivista storica 100 (2016): 484–515.

Fonti Aragonesi, ed. Jole Mazzoleni. Vol. 1. Napoli: L’Academia, 1961.

Garretson, Peter. “A Note on the Relations between Ethiopia and the Kingdom of Aragon in the Fifteenth Century.” Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 37 (1993): 37–44.

Gegaj, Athanase. L’Albanie et l’invasion turque au XVe siècle. Paris: Geuthner, 1937.

Gentile, Pietro. “Lo Stato napoletano sotto Alfonso I d’Aragona.” Archivio storico per le province napoletane, n.s. 24 (1938): 1–56.

Gill, J. “Pope Calixtus III and Scanderbeg the Albanian.” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 33 (1967): 534–62.

Heyd, W. Histoire du commerce du Levant au moyen-âge. Vol. 2. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1886.

Hrabak, Bogomil. “Trgovinske veze Pezara i Dubrovnika do 1700. godine [Commercial connections between Pesaro and Dubrovnik until 1700]. Anali Zavoda za povjesne znanosti u Dubrovniku 29 (1991): 23–79.

Il Carteggio Marcovaldi (1401–1437): Inventario, edited by Paola Pinelli. Roma: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, 2006.

Il Libro Rosso della città di Trani, edited by Gerardo Chioffari, and Mario Schiralli. Bari: Levante, 1995.

Il Registro della Cancellaria di Alfonso d’Aragona: Il Codice Chigi, un registro della Cancelleria di Alfonso I d’Aragona Re di Napoli per gli anni 1451–1453, edited by Jole Mazzoleni. Napoli: L’arte tipografica, 1965.

La calamità ambientali nel tardo Medioevo europeo: realtà, percezioni, reazioni, edited by Michael Matheus, Gabriella Piccinini, Giuliano Pinto, and Gian Maria Varanini. San Miniato: Centro studi sulla civilità del tardo medioevo – Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2010.

Landon, Edward H. Manual of Councils of the Holy Catholic Church. London: Rivington, 1846.

Latanzio, Federico, and Gian Maria Varanini. I centri minori italiani nel tardo medioevo: Cambiamento sociale, crescita economica, processi di ristrutturazione (secoli XIII–XVI). San Miniato 22–24 settembre 2016. San Miniato: Centro di Studi sulla Civiltà del Tardo Medioevo San Miniato, 2018.

Laurent, V. Les Memoires de Sylvestre Syropoulo sur le concile de Florence, 1438–1439. Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1971.

Lazzarini, Isabella. Communication and Conflict: Italian Diplomacy in the Early Renaissance, 1350–1520. Oxford: University Press, 2015.

Marinesco, Constantin. “Le Pape Calixte III (1455–1458), Alfonse V d’Aragon, Roi de Naples, et l’offensive contre les Turcs.” Bulletin de la section historique d. Académie Roumaine. Vol. 19 (1935): 77–97.

Marinesco, Constantin. “Les affaires commerciales en Flandre d’Alphonse V d’Aragon, roi de Naples (1416–1458).” Revue Historique 221, no. 1 (1959): 33–48.

Marinescu, Constantin. La politique orientaled‘Alfonse V d‘Aragon, roi de Naples, 1416–1458. Barcelona: Institut d’estudis Catalans, 1994.

Marino, John A. Pastoral Economics in the Kingdom of Naples. London–Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1988.

Mattingly, Garrett G. Renaissance Diplomacy. New York: Dover Publication, INC., 1988.

Miklosich, Franz, and Joachim Müller. Acta et diplomata Graeca medii aevi sacra et profana collecta. Vol. 5. Vienna: Gerold, 1887.

Muhaj, Ardian. “A política oriental de Alfonso V de Aragao e a Albânia de George Castriota-Skenderbeg.” Iacobus: revista de estudios jacobeos y medievales 23–24 (2008): 237–48.

Navarro Espinach, Germán. “Las elites financieras de la monarquía aragonesa entre Juan I y Alfonso V (1387–1458).” E-Spania: revue interdisciplinaire des études hispaniques médiévales et moderns (February, 2015): Des bureaucraties au service des cours. Administrateurs et gestion des affaires curiales dans la Péninsule ibérique aux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge, 23. Accessed on August 25, 2019. https://journals.openedition.org/e-spania/24259

Navarro Sorni, Miguel. Calixto III Borja y Alfonso el Magnanimo frente a la Cruzada. Valencia: Ayutamiento de Valencia, 2003.

Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, edited by Alexander Kazhdan. Vol. 2. Oxford: OUP, 1990.

Pastor, Ludwig von. History of the Popes. Vol. 2. London: Hodges, 1891.

Pilato, Luca. “Simone Caccetta, l’amicizia con Pietro Palagano e la sua ascesa socio-politica.” Arnia. January 2018. Accessed on February 15, 2019. https://www.tranilive.it/news/cultura/674050/arnia-simone-caccetta-lamicizia-con-pietro-palagano-e-la-sua-ascesa-socio-politica

Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, edited by Erich Trapp. 12 vols. Vienna: OAW, 1976–1996.

Ryder, Alan. “The Eastern Policy of Alfonso the Magnanimous.” Atti dell’Accademia Pontaniana n.s. 28 (1979): 7–26.

Ryder, Alan. Alfonso the Magnanimous: King of Aragon, Naples and Sicily, 1396–1458. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990.

Ryder, Alan. The Wreck of Catalonia: Civil War in the Fifteenth Century. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Sabaté i Curull, Flocel. “The Ports of the Medieval Adriatic Open Research Prospects.” Hortus Artium Mediaevalium 22 (2016): 11–23.

Sakellariou, Elleni. Southern Italy in the Late Middle Ages: Demographic, Institutional and Economic Change in the Kingdom of Naples, c. 1440 – c. 1530. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2012.

Salvadore, Matteo. The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian–European Relations 1402–1455. London–New York, Routledge, 2017.

Schreiner, Peter. Texte zur spatbyzantinischen Finanz-und Wirtsschaftsgeschitche in Handschriften der Biblioteca Vaticana. Vatican: BAV, 1991.

Setton, Kenneth M. Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571). Vol. 2. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976.

Speranza, Vilia. “Edizione e studio di fonti per la storia della Puglia nel periodo di Alfonso Magnanimo.” Ph.D. dissertation, Barcelona University, 2014.

Spremić, Momčilo. “Ragusa tra gli Aragonesi di Napoli e i Turchi.” Medievalia 7 (1987): 187–97.

Spremić, Momčilo. “Alfonso il Magnanimo e la sua politica nei Balcani.” In XVI Congresso Internazionale di Storia della Corona d’Aragona, edited by Guido D’Agostino, and Guido Buffardi. Vol. 1. Napoli: Paparo Edizioni, 2000: 741–53.

Spremić, Momčilo. “Balkanski vazali kralja Alfonsa Aragonskog [Balkan vassals of King Alfonso of Aragon].” In Prekinut uspon: srpske zemlje u poznom srednjem veku [Arested ascend: Serbian lands in Late Middle Ages], 355–58. Belgrade: Zavod za udzbenike–Iason, 2005.

Spremić, Momčilo. “Vazali kralja Alfonsa Aragonskog [Vassals of King Alfonso of Aragon].” Zbornik radova Filozofskog fakulteta 12, no. 1 (1974): 455–46.

Thallóczy, Lajos, and Samu Barabás. A Frangepán család oklevéltára. Vol. 2 (1454–1527). Budapest: MTAK, 1913.

Thallóczy, Ludwig von. Studien zur Geschichte Bosniens und Serbiens im Mittelalter. Munich: Duncker & Humblot, 1914.

The Jews in Sicily. Vol. 18, Under the Rule or Aragon and Spain: a Documentary, edited by Shlomo Simonsohn. In History of the Jews in Italy, vol. 32, edited by Shlomo Simonsohn. London–Leiden: Brill, 2010.

Trapp, Erich. “Downfall and Survival of the Laskaris Family.” Macedonian studies 1, no. 2 (1983): 45–49.

Vitale, Vito. Trani dagli Angioini agli Spagnoli: contributo alla storia civile e commerciale di Puglia nei secoli XV e XVI. Bari: Vecchi, 1912.

Zečević, Nada. “Confirmation Grant of King Alfonso V of Aragon to Leonardo III Tocco (July 16, 1452), an Authentic Charter with a Fake Justification?” Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta Univerziteta u Istočnom Sarajevu 14, no. 2 (2012): 9–21.

Zečević, Nada. “The Italian Kin of the Tocco Despot: Some Notes about the Relatives of Carlo I Tocco.” Zbornik radova vizantološkog instituta 39 (2002): 243–55.

Zečević, Nada. The Tocco of the Greek Realm: Nobility, Power and Migration in Latin Greece (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries). Belgrade: MACART and Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Eastern Sarajevo, 2014.

1 Among numerous interpretations, I am referring to the ones that reflect the most common positions found in the modern historiography: based upon the documents of the Archivo de la Corona de Aragón/ Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó in Barcelona, Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 2 (1902), 380–XXVII: 3 (1902), 555–634 and XXVIII: 1 (1903), 154–212; Spremić, “Vazali,” 455–46; Ryder, “The Eastern Policy, 7–26; Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous; Marinescu, La politique orientale, 95–99, 119–24; Bisson, The Medieval Crown, 144–46; Spremić, “Alfonso il Magnanimo, 741–53; Navarro Sorni, Calixto III Borja; Spremić, “Balkanski vazali,” 355–58; Ryder, The Wreck of Catalonia, 28, 44; Abulafia, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, 204–6, 211; Sabaté i Curull, “The ports of the medieval Adriatic, 11–23; Aloisio, “Alfonso V and the anti-Turkish crusade, 64–74. Cf. Cuadrada Majó, “Política italiana de Alfonso V de Aragón (1420–1442),” 269–309. For Alfonso’s relations with other parts of the East, including Ethiopia, which his documents identified as the mythical kingdom of Prester John, see Cerone, “La politica,” vol. 27: 1, 20–88; Garretson, “A Note on the Relations,” 37–44; Salvadore, The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopean-European Relations, 36–53; Figliuolo, “La Terrasanta nel quadro della politica orientale di Alfonso V,” 484–515.

2 Alfonso’s turn to the East as the part of his plans for the restoration of Constantinople was mentioned in his letter to Francesco I Sforza, Duke of Milan from February 14, 1458. Cf. Cerone, “La politica,” vol.

328, 159–60, also referring to his earlier letter to Duke of Genoa on August 5, 1455, in which he proposed first to sort his Italian affairs before turning against the Ottomans; also, cf. letter to Pope Nicholas dated September 8, 1453 advocating a Christian coalition and its anti-Ottoman agenda. More on this, Marinesco, “Le Pape Calixte III,” 77–97; Ryder, Alfonso, 45; 294 and n. 110; 295–97; 304–12; Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, 67; Lazzarini, Communication and Conflict, 4; 19.

Ryder, The Eastern Policy, 7–25; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, vol. 2, 170–71.

4 For his documents, see Cerone, “La politica,” vol. 27 and 28. For a wider interpretation, see Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 2, 283–84; Gegaj, L’Albanie et l’invasion turque, 83, proposing to focus on the political impediments which the King faced from the rulers of Italy and the Christian West.

5 On major embassies from the Palaiologoi in this period, Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 1, 431 (November 27, 1444); 436 (May 26, 1447); 442 (August 30, 1448); 449 (August 22, 1448). For visits of Demetrios’ man and Fonoleda’s interaction with him, Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3 568, n. 1 (January 18, 1451), etc. These men were followed by envoys of the local feudal lords, particularly active among whom were those sent by Herzeg Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, Albanian leader George C. Scanderbeg, and “Latin” rulers of Greece, King of Cyprus John II of Lusignan, John Assanes Zaccharia of Achaia, and Leonardo III Tocco of the Ionian islands. Some of these visits have been well-researched, cf. the relations with Scanderbeg, Muhaj, “La política oriental de Alfonso V de Aragao,” 237–48, but need to be more substantially compared with the pontifical policies in the region, cf. Gill, “Pope Calixtus III and Scanderbeg,”, 534–62. In the same period, Alfonso kept close contacts with Ragusa and Croatian Frangipanes, cf. Thallóczy and Barabás, A Frangepán család oklevéltára, vol. 2, XXXIX–XL; Thallóczy, Studien (August 5, 1453), 393–94; Spremić, “Ragusa tra gli Aragonesi di Napoli e i Turchi,” 187–97.

6 Dover, “Royal Diplomacy in Renaissance Italy,” 57, notes the comparative “backwardness” of Naples’ diplomacy in comparison with the glory of other centers in Renaissance Italy, explaining it with a “lack of the narrative of the emergence of ‘new diplomacy.’”

7 As pointed out by Ryder, Alfonso, 300, Alfonso’s claims to Hungary deriving from his takeover of the Angevin throne in Naples were evoked in 1447 by János Hunyadi, who attempted to create an anti-Ottoman coalition, but failed largely because of Alfonso’s dissensions with Florence and Venice.

8 On their embassies in the Balkans, as based upon the evidence of the Archivio della Corona de Aragon, see Thallóczy, Studien, nos. XXVII–XXIX (February 15–19, 1444), 356–63; no. XXXV (October 16, 1446), 370; LII (September 11, 1450), 384–85; LVIII (November 10, 1452), 389–91, LXIII (June 1, 1454), 394–400; LXXVII (August 3, 1457), 414–15. Ćirković, Herceg Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, 213.

9 In 1451 and 1452, Fonoleda took part in several treaties concluded between Alfonso and the lords of the Balkans: with Herzeg Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, with the ambassadors of Scanderbeg (March 26, 1451), and with Latin lords in Greece, Leonardo III Tocco (Zečević, “Confirmation grant of King Alfonso V of Aragon,” 9–21) and Michael Assanes Zaccharia. A similar arrangement was made with Demetrios Palaiologos in the Peloponnese, whom Alfonso, though, did not condition with vassalage, but rather promised his help in exchange for the presence of his navy in the waters of the Peloponnese and Ionian Sea. See, Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3, 623; Ćirković, Herceg, 74–75; Ryder, Alfonso, 303–5.

10 His family originated from Barcelona’s urban officials, and his father Francesco was also a notary. Arnaldo’s career seems to have started around 1436, when he began to follow the king on his royal itinerary and diplomatic travel, thus becoming the king’s most confident diplomatic secretary (cf. his use of formula “Rex mihi mandavit”), leaving his master Olzina to control the regular procedures of grant-issuing in Naples. Ryder, The Kingdom, 230–32 notes that he held several other offices, and he was mentioned in Sicily in 1448 as the general bailiff of Catalonia. The names of the king’s favorites and institutions active in his diplomacy towards the Balkans will be mentioned in this paper in their original forms, as quoted by the primary sources; the italicized forms indicate either specific forms mentioned in the sources or their Catalan versions, also documented in the primary materials. The names of the most notable rulers and highest royal dignitaries will be used in their English forms.

11 An example of his direct participation in Alfonso’s secret diplomatic affairs comes from Cerone, “La politica,” 27: 3 (May 24, 1453), 621, when Fonoleda was mentioned as just about to come in person to Constantinople and deliver the king’s letter to Constantine Palaiologos. This never happened, since only five days later Constantinople was already in Ottoman hands.

12 Thallóczy, Studien, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX (all on February 15–19, 1444), 356–63; The Jews in Sicily, vol. 18, 12030.

13 Under his authority, in 1446 we find one other notary in charge of fixing the king’s correspondence with Herzeg Kosača, an Arnaldo di Castello, Thallóczy, Studien, no. XLV (July 24, 1447), 378.

14 On his diplomatic travel, see Cerone, “La politica,” vol. XXVII: 3, 585 (October 17, 1451) and ibid. (December 10, 1451); Pantella’s fixing of the arrangement with Golem Arianiti took place on June 7, 1451, Cerone, “La politica,” XXVIII: 1, 176–77. This document was signed by Pantella and sealed with the Arianiti seal.

15 While the Pantellas originated from Piacenza, his kinsmen Pietro (perhaps his nephew, as suggested by Hrabak, “Trgovinske veze Pezara i Dubrovnika,” 26) traded grain and other food with Ragusa, as is known from the correspondence of Giuliano Marcovaldi of Ragusa. Pietro was a tintore in Ragusa, interested to commercialize his products, with factories which colored and sold textiles in Trani, San Severo, San Giovanni Rotondo, Manfredonia and Fortore, and also to Florentines Girolamo di Giovanni Marchionni e Cristofano di Giovanni, see more in Il Carteggio Marcovaldi. Other Pantella’s relatives operating in the East Adriatic cf. Dinić, Iz dubrovačkog arhiva, vol. III. On Peter Pantella and his connections, see Dinić Knežević, Petar Pantela.

16 Among other confident envoys of Alfonso, we also find Marquise of Gerace, dispatched to visit his own grandson Leonardo III Tocco and his neighbor, Assanes Zaccharia (September 4, 1454 and April, 5, 1455), Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3, 624. This communication was done orally, and we know that the king received the news with the utmost joy and pleasure.

17 Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3, 596, quoting Angelo di Constanzo, who noted Alfonso’s exceptional preference for spending money on spies, “more than any other ruler.” In some cases, it seems that the exquisite gifts Alfonso gave to some incoming envoys were also part of these bribes. Cf. Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 4 (January 29, 1454), 817, according to which the king prepared 20 falcons which his envoy Johannes Claver was to deliver to Giorgio Donna of Candia, while on August 14, 1454 (Cerone, 27: 4, 825–6), he ordered vestments and boots for a Demetrios Caleba, the “camerlench of the Greek Emperor.” As pointed out by Ryder, Alfonso, 294, by October 1453, this help had already been exhausted, to the point that Alfonso foresaw needing three years of taxes to restore his finances and prepare his military for another potential conflict.

18 Del Treppo, I mercanti Catalani, 491. Cf. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant, 291–92. A possibility to connect this figure with a family from Salento was hinted at by from Prosopographisches Lexikon, vol. 10. no. 24305, 122 (Ρίτζος), referring to a Peter Rizzo of Salento from the same period, as from de Capmany y Montpalau, Memorias históricas, t. II, 218, 231, 266, 273: append. 61, 66, showing the presence of the Catalan consuls in Constantinople in 1428, 1434, 1437, 1445, 1448 and 1453.

19 Spagnolus was mentioned in several relations of the court in Naples between mid-1452, for instance in Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3 (August 30, 1452), until August 30, 1452. The family’s Spanish origins are documented by ASNA, Regia Camera della sommaria, Processi, Pandetta generale o seconda, sec. XVI–1808, busta 386, fasc. 9432 (Spanuolo Giovanni Glorio, commune di Barca). In 1506, a Giovanni Spagnuolo was mentioned with several other Aragon officials in Abbruzzo, while resisting Ottoman attacks on these shores in 1506, as from ASNA, Regia Camera della Sommaria, Processi, Pandetta generale o seconda sec. XVI–1808; busta 509, fasc. 15305. Some Spaniards were mentioned in the early 1440s in Andrubitsa in the Peloponnese, as from Prosopographisches Lexikon, vol. 4, 132, no. 8315 (a Niccola ΄Ισπανὸς in 1440). For Frapperio’s presence, see Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3 (March 30, 1453), 611.

20 On February 25, 1448, a Manuel Disipatus was mentioned as the Byzantine imperial envoy in Naples; some time earlier, in 1435, he seems to have been one of the attendees of the Council of Basel, cf. Landon, Manual of Councils of the Holy Catholic Church, 85. His noble title was stressed in his diplomatic credentials and Alfonso’s reports on this (nobilem militem Manuelem disipatum ad vestram claritudinom legatura, mittimus […]). More on his diplomatic activity in Prosopographisches Lexikon, vol. 3, nos. 5540, 54 Δισύπατος: 1437–1448; in 1437 meeting Emperor Sigismund in Eger; 1438 he was in Venice, and in 1449 in Naples, cf. V. Laurent, Les Memoires de Sylvestre Syropoulo, 180; 182; 274–78; 300.

21 This is, apparently, a branch of the renown Byzantine ruling family (Laskaris/Tzamantouros). See more in ODB, vol. 2, 1180–1181; Trapp, “Downfall and Survival of the Laskaris Family,”, 45–49. The family’s connections with the Venetians and Naples through the Peloponnese has been noted in Prosopographisches Lexikon, vol. 6, no. 14521, p. 145: Kaballarios in Morea, 1450, 1451; Archon; οἰκεῖος of Demetrios Palaiologos, while the activities of Athanasius were recorded in 1450–1451 also in Venice, Florence and Ferrara. On Athanasius’ letter to the Florentines, see Spremić, “Vazali,” 462–64. In 1672, a Lascaris Giovanni Battissta, was mentioned as a Fisico Regio, as from ASNA, Regia Camera della Sommaria, Processi, Pandetta generale o seconda, XVI–1808, unità 860.

22 On his mission, see Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: XXX, 572 and 573 (January 18, 1451). Apart from him and Manuel Disipatos, other envoys coming from the Palaiologoi were Andronikos Leander, and John Apokaukes. Among the Latin emissaries from the East, in April 1447, we find Filip Celano, ambassador of the King of Cyprus and Michael Assanes (September 4, 1454 and April 5, 1455), a liege of Demetrios Palaiologos (1455), and Assanes’ man, Francesco d’Ariano, as noted in Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 4 (April 5, 1455), 835; this person was Δαριάνω Φραγγίσκος = Francesco d’Ariano, μισύρ Captain of the Tocco stronghold on Zakynthos in 1461, MM, AD, vol. 5, 69; cf. for a Jacob Ariano under Carlo I Tocco (b. c. 1375–d. c. 1429), Zečević, “The Italian Kin of the Tocco Despot”, 243–55. For a Todoros, captain of Krujë, also registered as an envoy in Naples. See Prosopographisches Lexikon, addenda zu fascikel 1–12 (1995), no. 93405, p. 36.

23 Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3 (May 26, 1447), 439–40. Torsellus, calling himself a “chevalier, serviceman and chamberlain of Emperor in Constantinople,” acted as the Byzantine envoy among the Ottomans allegedly for twelve years. For his advice to the Duke of Burgundy on how the West should confront the Ottomans, see Curiosa lettera di Giovanni Torzelo a Filippo di Borgogna, 263–68. The Aragon reception of him was far more negative, as he was noted as a man who liked to show off, ready to provide intelligence but also do many other actions which enabled secret double diplomacy. While in Naples, Torsellus was seen as a mirror of Alfonso’s main diplomat involved in the affairs on the Apennines, Luiz des Puig. A person of the same name was mentioned in Τορτζέλος, Prosopographisches Lexikon, vol. 12. no. 29144. p. 22. Torcello?; Turtzelos, as selling wine in Venice in 1470; Schreiner, Texte zur spat-byzantinischen Finanz-und Wirtsschaftsgeschitche, 4/2, 41, 44, 53.

24 Ad serenissimum principem et invictissimum regem Alphonsum Nicolai Sagundini oratio. This model of Alfonso is particularly apparent in the depiction of the Archduke of Austria in his Elegiarum de rebus gestis archiducum Austriae libri duo. On Alfonso’s propaganda that followed his policy, see Delle Donne, Alfonso il Magnanimo e l’invenzione dell’Umanesimo monarchicho.

25 Ryder, The Kingdom of Naples, 295.

26 Cerone, “La politica,” 27: 3, 566–68, about his property and citizenship status in Barcelona, as well as his connections with the Order of St. John. His wife was Sibilla, and they had a daughter named Eulalia, married to a Bartomeu Simo. His property in Barcelona consisted of a corridor de canvi of three houses in the street of Sant Cugat alcarred d’en Ombau (today’s carrer de Gombau); he also had some land in parish of Cencen de Sarria, near the Monastery of Santa Maria de Jesus, and a corridor d’orella in the parish of Santa Maria de Sants al Iloc which was called Los Pins d’en Llull and was governed by the Hospitallers. This may explain his immediate connection with them. In 1451, Cimart was active in financing the king’s relations with the Balkan lords, most notably Albanian envoys, but also a Guido Storjone, a man of the Despot of Arta (Leonardo III Tocco) who was recorded in Naples, Athnasio Laskaris (lasqujrj), Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3, 566. His banking activities were aligned with Alfonso’s main banking liaison, the institution held by Giovanni Miraballo, through which his main courtiers were paid. Navarro Espinach, “Las elites financieras de la monarquía aragonesa 23, n. 41.

27 On October 17, 1451, Cimart negotiated with a Florentine merchant named Damianus Lotteri (who seems to have originated from Piedmont), even though the Florentines had already been banned from Naples. As noted in Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 1, 71 and 75, Cimart also financed diplomats communicating between Egypt and Ethiopia. In this, he cooperated with another Catalan, Andreas Ferrer, who carried diplomatic gifts to Africa.

28 This kind of financing was applied to a number of traders whose contributions were always requested when the king had to regulate the debt to his creditors, cf. Cerone “La politica,” XXVII: 3 (October 17, 1451), 572.

29 Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3 (January 18 and 28, 1451), 573, and ibid. (October 17, 1451), 586.

30 His origins in Trani cannot be traced back long in time, hence some assume that he may have possibly come from Calabria, cf. Pilato, “Simone Caccetta.”

31 Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 273–90.

32 Latanzio, and Varanini, I centri minori italiani nel tardo medioevo, 383.

33 Il Libro Rosso della città di Trani, 25.

34 “Frammenti di Cedole della Tesoreria di Alfonso I,” 108 (December 21, 1449).

35 Frammento del Registro Curie Summariae,” 143–44. For his activities during the early 1450s, see Il Registro della Cancellaria di Alfonso d’Aragona, 111–12; 238–39; 302–4; 311–12; 330; 336–37.

36 In 1452, he was mentioned as collecting the toll on silver and iron in Trani, cf. Ryder, Alfonso, 259, n. 4. Ryder, The Kingdom of Naples, 345 n. 143, discussing his first mention in this capacity on June 9, 1449.

37 Thallóczy, Studien (November 10, 1452), 389–91; Ćirković, Herceg, 154–218.

38 Simone Caccetta was mentioned in documents for the first time on September 13, 1423, when he acted as a giudice upon a contract, replacing his colleague who had just died. On December 27, 1437 he received a hereditary 1/3 customs on taxed iron and steel in Trani, which seems to coincide with his participation in a local uprising (December 5) organized by the local noble Palagano, who favored Alfonso. In 1449, Caccetta was nominated maestro portolano e secreto per la Puglia e Capitanata, to receive the title of miles and regius consiliaris by 1450. His advancement is well-reflected in a palace and several houses he built in Trani and Molfetta, as well as in his daughters’ marriages: Restituta to Palamede Pignatelli, Pascarella to Ettore Zurlo (later to Giovanello Caracciolo), and Angelella in 1452 to Giacomuccio Barille. In 1456, he took a feudum in Vieste in exchange for 10,000 ducats with Neapolitan banker Petro Lomaro, and he also received fiscal income from Trani. He helped the advancement of his brother Baldassare, who was the captain of Molfetta and custom officer in Giovinazzo. Balthazar was violent, and his office met with many complaints, which he seems to have evaded based of the fact that he financed the armament of one galleon dispatched to attack the Ottomans (Guerra da corsa). Caccetta had another brother, Angelo, whom he also employed in customs until 1456. Following Alfonso’s death, he rebelled against King Ferrante, for which he was imprisoned. Eventually, he sought the protection of Giovanni Antonio Orsini, together with his son Nardò, and he was stationed in Bisceglia, where he organized partisan groups against Ferrante. By July 9, 1459, he was mentioned as dead. The still visible material assets of Caccetta’s power are his palace (1456) in Trani’s Via Ognisanti 5, facing the palace of the local knight Giovanello Sifola, and the town’s piazza St. Marco. For more on him and the town’s events in this period, see Giovanni Beltrani, Cesare Lambertini e la società famigliare in Puglia durante i secoli XV e XVI, vol. 1 (documenti) (Napoli, etc.: Vecchi, 1884); Vito Vitale, Trani dagli Angioini agli Spagnoli: contributo alla storia civile e commerciale di Puglia nei secoli XV e XVI (Bari: Vecchi, 1912), 109; 152; 175; 202–7; 601; 671–92; Gentile, “Lo Stato napoletano sotto Alfonso I d’Aragona,” 36.

39 Other people from this network included the castellanus of Trani, Pietro Palagno (in 1436 maintaining 100 lances and 100 infantry troops in support of Alfonso) and Angelo Rocca, also from Trani, well-linked to various mercenary troops. See Vilia Speranza. “Edizione e studio di fonti per la storia della Puglia nel periodo di Alfonso Magnanimo.” Ph.D. dissertation, Barcelona University, 2014, 221, cap. IX, 2,

40 Compared to all Aragon possessions, their importance did not exceed the measures of the bordering provinces to the south of the Apennines, yet for Alfonso’s relations with the Balkan lords, he was certainly one of the crucial figures of the so called “doganal economy” and Alfonso’s diplomacy.

41 The Custom house of Foggia was founded in 1447, largely coinciding with Alfonso’s initiative to enforce diplomatic communications and exchange with the Balkans. Portulan masters were active also for the ports of Foggia, Trani, Manfredonia, Barletta, and Bari, all oriented around the traffic with the eastern side of the Adriatic. Sources for this period of the Dogana have not survived, hence these prosopographic data are highly important in the reconstruction of the first stages of the office. On the economy of the kingdom and modes of exchange, see Marino, Pastoral Economics in the Kingdom of Naples, and Sakellariou, Southern Italy in the Late Middle Ages.

42 This involved him in the control of the contributions for the ports and import-export taxes. See Fonti Aragonesi, vol. 1, 91–98, about traders who paid loans controlled by the creditors.

43 Ciuffreda, “Massari e mercanti di piazza,” 175–79.

44 As can be seen from Alfonso’s letters to Constantine Palaiologos dated March 17, March 21, and April 2, 1453. Dalmau Fenoses was also recorded earlier (November 5, 1450) and just prior to the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, for instance in Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3 (May 25, 1453), 573, for delivering grain supplies to the East. Usually, he seems to have operated with Gabriele Fabriquez and Gaspar Fabricius, who later became officers in charge with officio racionis domus nostre (“La politica,” XXVII: 3, 616). Del Treppo, I mercanti catalani. For Dalmau Fenoses, see La calamità ambientali, 371, n. 161. Fenoses’ son Esteve seems to have remained on the Iberian Peninsula, taking care of the family’s property there. Fenoses was mentioned by the Venetians as also trading in slaves from the East (Rhodes), Duran I Duelt, “De l’autonomia a la integració,” 80, n. 49

45 On November 16, 1453, Alfonso was recorded as exchanging gifts with Junius Gradić, envoy of the Serbian Kralis (Despot George Branković, 1427–1456). Fenoles appeared in the position of treasurer since 1449, acting as an intermediary between tax collectors and the treasury, cf. Ryder, The Kingdom of Naples, 178, n. 149; on his visit to Flanders at the end of 1450 as the official of the treasury, carrying some secret correspondence with him, see Marinesco, “Les affaires commerciales en Flandre d’Alphonse V d’Aragon,” 33–48.

46 In 1453, May 24, p. 621, Fenoses and his companions, Gaspare Fabriquez were designaged as nobles.

47 Ryder, The Kingdom of Naples, 305–7; 311. Villamarin was mentioned as the captain of the galleys as early as 1444. In campaigns like this one, the king was entitled to one fifth of the booty, ibid. 307, n. 96. In 1450, Villamarin established Aragon control over a small island of Castelorizo near Rhodes, from where the Aragon troops could raid the Syrian coast, watching, at the same time, the situation on Rhodes. In March 1453, Villamarin appeared again in the waters of the Ionian Sea, where he also had a diplomatic mission to accomplish and could contact Leonardo III Tocco, Zečević, Tocco, 114; 120, n. 154 For his service, he was later granted large farms (massa’rie) in southern Italy.

48 Cerone, “La politica,” XXVII: 3, 621. Similar activities were noted in Ciufreda, “Massari e mercanti,” 171, for consul Dario di Florio, who indeed took part in the export of grain.

49 In 1455, de Nava was ordered to do a similar thing as from Ryder, The Kingdom of Naples, 58, n. 17, to be entitled with the honorary title of a warrior-chamberlain.

50 Cerone, “La politica,” XXVIII, 179–80 (May 31, 1450). The Vaquers, although ancestrally linked to the Iberian Peninsula, were in fact, from Cagliari.

51 Ryder, The Kingdom of Naples, 189.

52 Cerone, “La politica,” XVIII: 1, 185.

53 Cerone, “La politica,” XXVIII: 1, 181–82 (September 25, 1455), mentioning gifts which mesire xerìllo gaìlinaro had to carry with him and two other envoys to Albania (John Claver and Miguel de Bellprato). Cerone, “La politica,” XVIII: 1, 206–206 (June–July 1456), also mentions him as working with leonart bezutzo and Sullo battifulla, also sometimes involving a Thomas Atani, a Florentine trader, while paying taxes to Jean Calala. As noted in Cerone, “La politica,” XVIII: 1, 200–201, and n. 1, since 1455, Gallinaro supplied Nava and Campobasso with arms (December 12, 1455–February 3, 1456), and he was also involved in supporting one other Albanian mission which appeared in Naples (April 23, 1457) asking for help. The Gallinaros were tied to Calabria; at the end of the eighteenth century, they were mentioned there as the supporters of the Sanfedisti movement against the Parthenopaean Republic.

* This paper is part of my research project MIGWEB: A Comparative Diachronic Analysis of Post-Byzantine Networks in Early Modern Europe (15th–18th c.), funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska Curie grant agreement No. 747 857.

82504.png

Map 1. Europe in the 1440s (Map drawn by Béla Nagy)

81999.png

Map 2. Southern Balkans in 1410. At: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_southern_Balkans,_1410.svg, Copyright: Cplakidas. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Figure 1. Palazzo Cacceta, Trani, Italy – 15th c. (detail), as from https://www.tranilive.it/news/cultura/674050/arnia-simone-caccetta-lamicizia-con-pietro-palagano-e-la-sua-ascesa-socio-politica, n.c.

Figure%201_Palazzo%20Cacceta%2c%20Trani%2c%20Italy%20--%2015th%20c.%20(detail).jpg

Figure 2. Palazzo Cacceta, Trani, Italy – 15th c. (detail), as from downloaded from https://mapio.net/pic/p-15052658/ (©Davide Salieva)

Figure%202_Palazzo%20Cacceta%2c%20Trani%2c%20Italy%20--%2015th%20c.%20(detail).jpg

Figure 3. Palazzo Cacceta, Trani, Italy – 15th c., as from https://www.salentoacolory.it/trani-viaggio-nel-medioevo/ by Salentoacolory

Figure%203_Palazzo%20Cacceta%2c%20Trani%2c%20Italy%20--%2015th%20c.%20(detail).jpg

2019_3_Tuhári

Volume 8 Issue 3 CONTENTSpdf

Catullus on a Coat-of-Arms: A Pictorial Paraphrase of Catull. 11 from Late Medieval Hungary*

Attila Tuhári
Doctoral School of Linguistics, Pázmány Péter Catholic University
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The paper discusses the coat-of-arms of Mathias of Szente (or of Sáró) granted by Ladislaus V in 1456, the depiction of which includes–in my opinion–a pictorial paraphrase of a Catullian metaphor. This could offer a more satisfactory, but unusual answer to the emerging problems regarding the interpretation of the composition. The study attempts to reveal how Catullus’ poem could reach Mathias of Szente, as well as the possible connotations it might have awaken on a broader range of the society.

Keywords: coat-of-arms, Mathias of Szente, Catullus

 On January 31, 1456 in the town of Győr, Ladislaus the Posthumous (Ladislaus V as King of Hungary and Croatia) granted arms of nobility to the literatus Mathias of Szente, also appearing as of Sáró, and other members of his line.1 The letters patent contains only a heraldic miniature, and no written description is presented for it. The heraldic achievement could be blazoned as follows: Azure, a Base Sable, over it a Plough Argent facing sinister with Handles Or, at its point a Tree raguly standing palewise with three Roses Gules slipped Vert issuant from its top.2 The same tree with the roses appears as a crest on the tilting helmet mantled Gules doubled Argent.3

This unique heraldry of the Szentei4 family caught the attention of historians a long time ago. Because this particularly early depiction of a heavy plough on this coat-of-arms is worth examining from the perspective of historical research on everyday life, as well as on heraldry, scholars have placed considerable emphasis on these topics.5 They have been unable, however, to determine what could have inspired the creator or the receiver of this coat-of-arms in its making.6 Toronyi goes the farthest in addressing this question with her claim that in the subsequent centuries these depictions usually referred to the family’s scope of activities, but she does not venture any guess as to how the Szentei family related to the item depicted, because the available sources do not touch on this.

In the following, we present our hypothesis concerning this coat-of-arms’ importance in literary history, as well as supporting the idea, that the heraldic symbols are connected–with a minor twist–to the family’s scope of activities. Finally, we also offer an explanation as to why this instrument appeared so early on a piece of heraldry.

Our discussion begins with the fact that during the process of submitting a petition for a coat-of-arms, the would-be bearer of this heraldry could present a draft of his design or one already in use by him to the chancellery.7 This is a well-documented custom from the Sigismund era of Hungary, because the letters patent inform us of petitioners providing drafts for the monarch.8 Unfortunately the letters from the years of Ladislaus V and the later ones skip this formula, and they only refer to the act of the supplication. We cannot presume the absence of this custom, however, because we know from later texts that it was common practice in the sixteenth century.9

Individual concepts unquestionably played an important part in the creation of the coat-of-arms for Mathias of Szente. This is confirmed indirectly by the document too, because it reveals that the petitioner requested a granting of a coat-of-arms from the king by his supporters.10 The seemingly marginal information, namely that in the letters patent Mathias of Szente is referred to as a literatus, becomes decisively important in this case. In our assessment, his literacy was not simply a condition of his selection, but also an explanation for it.

What is depicted on this coat-of-arms? Its most significant attribute is the unity of the composition. A plough and a rose on a single shield are depicted on a Bavarian coat-of-arms from a much later period, but in this case they are separated on two different fields.11 The connection of these motifs in this manner is unique. The creator of this illustration evidently wanted to capture an idea: the moment when the share cuts into the roots of the rose. Why else would the tree’s stem be so clearly positioned behind the plough’s share, and why would it otherwise need a base connecting the two elements into a united composition?12 Last but not least, why is there a rose tree—or any plant—in the middle of a depiction of ploughing, when this act is the turning of soil which has already been cleared of plants?

Our questions seem instantly answered when we consider them from a different angle. This composition obviously corresponds to one of the most beautiful metaphors of classical Latin literature, the metaphor with which Catullus, deceived by the unfaithful Lesbia, captures the state in which he finds himself and depicts it in his farewell message to the girl who cannot even understand her misdeed and the extent of the loss and the value of the thing squandered:13

 nec meum respectet, ut ante, amorem,

qui illius culpa cecidit velut prati

ultimi flos, praetereunte postquam

tactus aratro est.14

(Catull. 11. 21–24)

 Looking at this obvious parallel, we might well ask how this man of the lower nobility from Nógrád County was familiar with the abovementioned poem by Catullus?15 Because we do not know of a manuscript or florilegium from this period from which he could have learned of this poet’s work, which had been rediscovered one and a half centuries earlier.16 At first glance, we might conjecture that he must have studied abroad. Indeed, this was the case. The lists of the peregrini who studied in Vienna include a certain Mathias de Saro from 1443 who was probably our nobleman from Upper Hungary.17 Unfortunately, Mathias seems, on the basis of the sources at least, to have ventured no further. There is no indication of him having studied in Italy or Prague.18 However, in Vienna, students studied the scholastic curriculum.19 New trends only began to develop in the 1450’s.20

Based on all these, one can hypothesize a certain degree of indirect influence, which narrows the possibilities. We do not contend that Mathias of Szente necessarily knew of Catullus’s work, nor are we arguing that he had read the 11th carmen in its original form. We can only be certain of this metaphor from Catullus having reached him through some medium, perhaps without him having been aware of its origin. This doesn’t lessen the importance of the metaphor: the works of Catullus seemed to have been enjoying some influence in Hungary somewhat earlier than has been thought.

But where and how did Mathias find this metaphor? Aside from the abovementioned letters patent, we have no other sources concerning his life, thus we can only rely on assumptions. The most probable place would have been the country’s capital, Buda. The schools of Pest and Buda offered outstandingly high practical knowledge of Latin in the region before King Mathias I, and this knowledge was a precondition of admittance to any institution of higher education.21 Moreover, Buda was the place where Pier Paolo Vergerio (1370–1444)22 resided, one of the initiating figures of Humanism in Hungary, who served at the late king Sigismund’s chancellery but retired in 1426 and unquestionably knew of the neoteric poet’s work. Thus, Mathias may have come across this metaphor in some form in a fortunate coincidence before having even begun his studies in Vienna, one precondition of which was the completion of studies he most likely pursued in Buda, since his family owned land in the area.23 Vergerio’s Humanist erudition without doubt made a mark on intellectuals in Hungary after his death too.

Though the university in Vienna offered students no opportunity to familiarize themselves with the work of Catullus, this does not mean that Mathias did not come across the writings of Catullus in some other context in the city. It suffices to note that Enea Silvio Piccolomini served in the chancellery of Frederick III between 1442 and 1455,24 during which time Mathias of Szente was a student (1443–1444).

If we place the time of at which Mathias coming across this motif right before the granting of arms, we come to another possible connection, this time with Janus Pannonius,25 who visited his home twice during his student years in Italy (in 1450–1451 and for a longer period in the end of 1454 and the first months of 1455) and resided in Prague since the beginning of October 1454,26 followed by a short stay in Várad and Buda in January 1455 and a visit to the imperial assembly in Wiener Neustadt27 (where he met with Enea Silvio Piccolomini in person too) before returning to Italy. If we consider Mathias’ loyal services to Ladislaus V mentioned in the letters patent, in theory he could have been part of the king’s or his chancellor’s entourage and thus may have met Janus Pannonius on the latter’s arrival in Prague on October 2, 1454 or during his stay later in Wiener Neustadt.28 If he was a member of the chancellery, they could have met in Buda too.

In our research, we had to exclude the possibility of the painter being responsible for the composition. The art historian Dénes Radocsay found, among the preserved pictures of arms, one from three years earlier (Leővey grant of arms, May 3, 1453) and one from barely twenty days later (Bethlenfalvy Szepesy grant of arms, February 19, 1456) which bear affinities with the Szentei grant and thus may have been works by the same painter. This relationship, however, is only stylistic and has nothing to do with the content of the compositions. Neither of the two grants mentioned above is a complex composition depicting an action in motion. The earlier one is connected through the ornament style used in the square background of the miniature and the later one through its flat drawing. The attributes of the depiction examined thus far cannot be explained by the (in Radocsy’s judgement mediocre) painter’s artistic perception and style.29

It is worth mentioning one of the picture’s motifs, the three red roses. Aside from some other appearances,30 these are the ancient symbols of the Szente-Mágócs line and as such are the symbols of prestigious families who likewise got their name after their land-holdings, which is almost identical with the one part of the petitioner’s names. We cannot ignore the fact that the connection is only between these motifs. Thus, this offers further evidence in support of the view that the petitioner was a man of erudition, as he probably sought to connect his family with a line possessing a coat-of-arms from ancient times.

Finally, I would like to add a comment. If the supposed allusion was not clear (or could not have been clear) for the contemporary beholder, then the hint of the grant’s beneficiary being a literatus is also presented on a simpler level. Formal use of the participium perfectum of the verb exaro (litterae exaratae) was frequently used as a synonym of scribo in the Late Medieval and Early Modern period.31 Thus, a viewer versed in the language used by that administration could also easily recognize a simpler layer of this reference hidden in the depiction.32

If the abovementioned parallel is accepted, this suggests two conclusions. First, it provides further support for the notion, according to which the depiction of this unique coat-of-arms can be interpreted as a reflection of the petitioners scope of activities indirectly, because its core is a text by a classical author.33 Second, and this is of greater importance, this pictorial paraphrase is the first sign of Catullus’s reception in Hungary, as far as we know. It thus proves that Catullus was not entirely unfamiliar (if also not widely familiar) in Hungary before Janus Pannonius’ return in his home country.

Bibliography

A magyarországi középkori latinság szótára. 3. köt. D–E = Lexikon[!] latinitatis medii aevi Hungariae. Vol. 3. D–E. Edited by János Harmatta, et al. Budapest, 1992.

Aschbach, Joseph. Geschichte der Wiener Universität im ersten Jahrhunderte ihres Bestehens. Vol. 1. Vienna: Verlag der k. k. Universität, 1865.

Balassa, Iván. Az eke és a szántás története Magyarországon [The history of plows and ploughing in Hungary]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1973.

Bertényi, Iván. Magyar címertan [Hungarian heraldry]. Budapest: Osiris Kiadó, 2003.

Csoma, József. Magyar nemzetségi czímerek [Coats-of-arms of Hungarian genus]. Vol. 3, bk. 2, of A magyar nemzetségek a XIV. század közepéig. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1904.

Fejérpataky, László. Magyar czimeres emlékek [Hungarian sources for coats of arms]. Vol. 1. Budapest: Magyar Heraldikai és Genealogiai Társaság, 1901.

Fejérpataky, László. Magyar czimeres emlékek [Hungarian sources for coats of arms]. Vol. 2. Budapest: Magyar Heraldikai és Genealogiai Társaság, 1902.

Haig Gaisser, Julia. “Catullus in the Renaissance.” In A Companion to Catullus, edited by Marilyn B. Skinner, 439–60. Malden, Oxford, Carlton (Victoria, Australia): Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

Haig Gaisser, Julia. Catullus and His Renaissance Readers. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.

Haraszti Szabó, Péter, Borbála Kelényi, and László Szögi. Magyarországi diákok a prágai és krakkói egyetemeken 1348–1525. Students from Hungary at the universities of Prague and Krakow 1348–1525. Vol. 2. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Levéltára, MTA–ELTE Egyetemtörténeti Kutatócsoport, 2017.

Huszti, József. “Pier Paolo Vergerio és a magyar humanizmus kezdete” [Pier Paolo Vergerio and the beginnings of Humanism in Hungary]. Filológiai Közlöny 1, no. 4 (1955): 521–33.

Kálmán, Dániel. “A középkori magyar armálisok címerei 1437 és 1490 között” [Medieval Hungarian coats of arms on letters patent between 1437 and 1490]. In Micae medievales V. Fiatal történészek dolgozatai a középkori Magyarországról és Európáról, edited by Laura Fábián, Judit Gál, and Péter Haraszti Szabó. 145–57. Budapest: ELTE BTK Történelemtudományok Doktori Iskola, 2016.

Kiss, Farkas Gábor. “A magyarországi humanizmus kezdeteiről: Pierpaolo Vergerio, Vitéz János és Johannes Tröster” [On the beginnings of Humanism in Hungary: Pierpaolo Vergerio, János Vitéz, and Johannes Tröster]. In Convivium Pajorin Klára 70. születésnapjára, edited by Enikő Békés, and Imre Tegyey, 119–31. Debrecen–Budapest: Debreceni Egyetem, 2012.

Kiss, Dániel. “Editions and Commentaries.” In The Cambridge Companion to Catullus, edited by Anthony J. Woodman, and Ian M. Le M. Du Quesnay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

Kiss, Dániel. “Isaac Vossius, Catullus and the Codex Thuaneus.” Classical Quarterly 65, no. 1 (2015): 344–54.

Kline, A. S., transl. Catullus: The Poems. Poetry in Translation. 2007. www.poetryintranslation.com

Kubinyi, András. “Polgári értelmiség és hivatalnokréteg Budán és Pesten a Hunyadi- és Jagelló korban” [The commoner’s intelligentsia and administration officials of Pest and Buda in the Hunyadi and Jagelló eras]. In Tanulmányok Budapest középkori történetéről. Vol 2, edited by István Kenyeres, Péter Kis, and Csaba Sasfi, 599–619. Budapest: Budapest Főváros Levéltára, 2009.

Lhotsky, Alphons, ed. Thomas Ebendorfer: Chronica Austriae. Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, nova series, tomus 13. Berlin–Zürich, 1967.

Lowe, E. A. Codices Latini Antiquiores. Vol. 10. Oxford: Clarendon 1963.

Mayer, Roland. “Catullus’ divorce.” Classical Quarterly 33 (1983): 297–98.

Graf Meraviglia-Crivelli, Rudolf Johann. Der Böhmische Adel: J. Siebmacher’s grosses und allgemeines Wappenbuch. 4. Bandes 9. Abteilung. Nürnberg: Verlag von Bauer und Raspe, 1886.

Nyulásziné Straub, Éva. Öt évszázad címerei a Magyar Országos Levéltár címereslevelein [Coats-of-arms of five centuries on the letters patent in the National Archives of Hungary]. Budapest: Corvina, 1987.

R. Kiss, István. “Természetes ábrázolás az 1526. év előtti Magyar czimerekben” [Naturalistic depictions on Hungarian coats-of-arms before 1526]. Turul 24 (1903): 49–56, 119–25, 162–71.

Radocsay, Dénes. “Gótikus magyar címereslevelek” [Gothic letters patent of coats-of-arms in Hungary]. Művészettörténeti Értesítő 1, no. 4 (1957): 271–94.

Ritoókné Szalay, Ágnes. “Janus Pannonius és Várad” [Janus Pannonius and Várad]. In Convivium Pajorin Klára 70. születésnapjára, edited by Enikő Békés, and Imre Tegyey, 171–81. Debrecen–Budapest: Debreceni Egyetem, 2012.

Seyler, Gustav A. Abgestorbener Bayerischer Adel. Vol 2. J. Siebmacher’s grosses und allgemeines Wappenbuch. 6. Bandes 1. Abteilung. Nürnberg: Verlag von Bauer und Raspe, 1906.

Seyler, Gustav A. Bisthümer und Klöster: J. Siebmacher’s grosses und allgemeines Wappenbuch. 1. Bandes 5. Abteilung. 1. Reihe. Nürnberg: Verlag von Bauer und Raspe, sine dato.

Szilágyi, Loránd. “Írásbeli supplicatiók a középkori magyar administratióban” [Written supplications in medieval Hungarian administration]. Levéltári Közlemények 10 (1932): 157–76.

Szilágyi, Emőke Rita. “Vitéz János mecenatúrája: Johannes Tröster és az 1450-es évek” [The patronage of János Vitéz: Johannes Tröster and 50s of the 15th century]. PhD diss., ELTE, 2013.

Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Vol. 10. P–PORRVS. Berlin, New York, 1982–2010.

Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Vol. 5. E. Leipzig: Teubner, 1931–1953.

Török, László. “Catullus-hatások Janus Pannonius költészetében” [Catullian influence on Janus Pannonius’ poetry]. In Török, László. Janus-arcok: Összegyűjtött tanulmányok, recenziók, fordítások és kommentárok, edited by Gyula Mayer, 15–36. Budapest: Typotex, 2008.

Toronyi, Alexandra. “Sárói (Szentei)-címereslevél, 1456” [The letters patent of the Sárói (Szentei) Coat-of-Arms, 1456]. In Középkori magyar címereslevelek I. (1439–1503), edited by Tamás Körmendi, 29–31. Budapest: ELTE Eötvös József Collegium, 2013.

Tüskés, Anna. Magyarországi diákok a bécsi egyetemen 1365 és 1526 között. Students from Hungary at the University of Vienna between 1365 and 1526. Budapest: Az Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Levéltára, 2008.

Veress, Endre. Matricula et acta Hungarorum in universitatibus Italiae studentium 1221–1864. Monumenta Hungariae Italica 3. Olasz egyetemeken járt magyarországi tanulók anyakönyve és iratai 1221–1864. Olaszországi magyar emlékek 3. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1941.

Wiseman, T. P. Catullus & His World: A Reappraisal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

 

Catullus Online. An online repertory of conjectures on Catullus.

http://www.catullusonline.org/CatullusOnline/?dir=edited_pages&pageID=11

 

1* I owe many thanks to Anton Avar (National Archives of Hungary) for giving advice in heraldic matters, especially on heraldic descriptions, to Dániel Kiss (Eötvös Loránd University) for resolving my sometimes misleading uncertainties in the stemmatics of the manuscripts, and to László Takács (Pázmány Péter Catholic University) for sharing his views and insights on this question.

The document is held by the National Archives of Hungary under the following reference code: MNL OL – Diplomatikai Levéltár [Archives of Diplomatics] 50530 (hereafter DL). The donation’s text in a critical form with a brief analysis (and monochrome reproduction) was published by Toronyi, Sárói (Szentei)-címereslevél, 29–31. The image itself, along with a brief description, was presented by Bertényi, Magyar címertan, 41. (48. image); with a somewhat more detailed description by Nyulásziné Straub, Öt évszázad címerei, 36. (XX. table), 121; on a monochrome image it is presented too by Balassa, Az eke és a szántás, 299; et al. Toronyi has published a blazon, still, in this study we give a more refined version.

2 The discovery of the existence of a base in this coat-of-arms was made by Anton Avar. In the existing blazons, this element was usually referred to as a realistic (i. e. “proper”) depiction of the ground or earth, and I thought of it this way too, despite the fact that I had an opportunity to examine the original miniature.

3 The color of the field in this coat-of-arms could not be defined using the various digital copies. Nyulásziné Straub considered it green in her brief description. As a matter of fact, it is more between blue and green. The plough’s body could be described as spotted pale grey (which is actually the base color of the painting in its flawed state), a color which could also be the product of the oxidation of silver paint. The plough’s share and the rose tree’s bark are gold mixed with brown. The inner side of the mantling has no distinctive color, aside from the one resembling that of butter, which was used as a base for the whole, and a blackish discoloration similar to the one on the plough’s body. Thus, in contrast to Toronyi’s description of the colors as red and golden they are more likely red and silver.

4 This is the common Hungarian adjective form used as their family name given after the village where they owned properties.

5 Because a depiction of an instrument used in everyday life from such an early period is very rare (Nyulásziné Straub, Öt évszázad címerei, 121.) and, furthermore, the turning plough depicted here is similar to the much later ones used at the beginning of the nineteenth century, meaning that it hasn’t changed much during the centuries. Balassa, Az eke és a szántás, 300–1, quoted by Bertényi, Magyar címertan, 121. n. 32.

6 In addition to the aforementioned: Kálmán, Középkori magyar armálisok, 147–48, 155–56.

7 R. Kiss, Természetes ábrázolás, 50, 170. We do not have a supplication of this kind from the Middle Ages. For more information on the method of submitting other petitions: Szilágyi, Írásbeli supplicatiók.

8 A better known example with the words of the Cook, Franciscus of Eresztvény’s grant of arms from September 16, 1414: arma seu nobilitatis insignia in praesentium litterarum nostrarum capite depicta maiestati nostre exhibendo, ab eadem maiestatis nostre celsitudine eadem arma seu nobilitatis insignia sibi […] heredibusque et posteritatibus universis ipsorum, ex liberalitate nostra dari et conferri humiliter et devote supplicavit. Fejérpataky, Magyar czimeres emlékek I., 35. This is also present with other wording a year later in Michael Bor’s grant of arms, who was Vice-master of the Horse: Proinde ad universorum tam praesentium quam futurorum, notitiam harum serie volumus pervenire, quod coram celsitudine nostre maiestatis personaliter constituto nobili famoso ac egregio Michaele dicto Bor [...] pro eo et eius nomine ac in personis nobilium virorum [...] exhibuit nobis quandam cartam, arma seu nobilitatis insignia [lacuna] clarius continentem [...]. Supplicavitque ob hoc celsitudini nostre maiestatis predictus Michael dictus Bor, [...] vicemagister agazonum regalium nostrorum, [...] humiliter atque devote, ut predicta arma seu nobilitatis insignia sibi [...] ex plenitudine potestatis nostrae regie maiestatis atque liberalitate regia dare et concedere dignaremur. Fejérpataky, Magyar czimeres emlékek II, 14.

9 One of the best examples is the petition submitted by Sebastianus of Tinód (MNL OL - R 64 - 1. - No. 14/b) and his grant of arms published in Vienna on August 25, 1553 (MNL OL - R 64 - 1. - No. 14/a). His coat-of-arms is painted on his supplication, though it wasn’t painted on the grant itself, probably because of a lack of money or other reasons, but its blazon is found in the text. I would like to thank Mihály Kurecskó (National Archives of Hungary) for bringing this example to my attention.

10 Ad nonnullorum fidelium nostrorum humilime supplicationis instantiam [...] ipsa arma seu nobilitatis insignia [...] dedimus et contulimus, ymmo ex habundantiori plenitudine nostre specialis gratie concedimus et presentibus elargimur, […] Toronyi, Sárói (Szentei)-címereslevél, 29.

11 The Oeder line (1784): a plough and a rose, Seyler, Bayerischer Adel, 165. (Taf. 102.); Julius Pflug (the last bishop of Naumburg 1547–1564): a share and a stem, Seyler, Bisthümer und Klöster, 38. (Taf. 66.); Pflug von Rabenstein: a plough and a stem, Graf Meraviglia-Crivelli, Der Böhmische Adel, 247–48. (Taf. 112.)

12 This realistic depiction on arms paintings and correlating with this the depictions of acts in motion are identified by R. Kiss as specifically Hungarian elements. For this reason, the notion that the base appears as a supporter is acceptable in our assessment: this idea does not interfere with the crucial parts of our hypothesis.

13 Mayer, Catullus’ divorce, 297–98; Wiseman, Catullus & His World, 144–46.

14 [L]et her not look for my love as before, she whose crime destroyed it, like the last flower of the field, touched once by the passing plough. Kline, Catullus. The Poems, 27.

15 On the Renaissance reception of Catullus in general see: Haig Gaisser, Catullus in the Renaissance; Haig Gaisser, Catullus and His Readers.

16 Works of Catullus can be found among the preserved Corvinas of King Mathias I, which is the first known Catullus text from Hungary. Today it is held in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB Cod. 224.).

17 Tüskés, Diákok a bécsi egyetemen, 162. 2924th line (1443. 10. 15.).

18 Veress, Matricula et acta Hungarorum. Haraszti, Kelényi, and Szögi, Magyarországi diákok.

19 Not a single one of the Catullus texts held in Vienna today was created there, and even the earliest one of the three is from around 1460. Dániel Kiss brought to my attention the fact that the view has been disproved according to which the anthology piece held in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek’s collection, contained in its unabridged form also the 11th carmen’s text beside the 62th and which anthology could be traced back to the same source as the Codex Thuaneus, which contains the oldest Catullus manuscript (the one held in Vienna in its current state does not contain either one of the texts). This false belief was based on a faulty source recognition of a scholion by Isaac Vossius on the 11th carmen, according to which Vossius read a variant of the text (fractus instead of tactus) in the Codex Thuaneus (Kiss, Isaac Vossius, 344.). On disproving this thesis: Kiss, Editions and Commentaries. Nevertheless, this was either not available in Vienna during the period in question. Lowe, Codices Latini, n. 1474. On the place and time of writing these manuscripts see the online conjecture-repertorium created by Dániel Kiss. http://www.catullusonline.org/CatullusOnline/?dir=edited_pages&pageID=11.

20 Aschbach, Geschichte der Wiener Universität, 353–54.

21 Kubinyi, Polgári értelmiség, 606–8.

22 Huszti, Pier Paolo Vergerio; Kiss, A magyarországi humanizmus kezdeteiről, 121.

23 The distance between Buda and Szente is 55 kilometers. The distance between Buda and Sáró is less than 75 kilometers.

24 Szilágyi, Vitéz János mecenatúrája, 26–27.

25 Although László Török proved that Janus Pannonius knew the neoteric poet thoroughly, we find notraces of this in his poetical language among the Catullian syntagms and the tools of depiction in poetry unveiled by Török. Török, Catullus-hatások.

26 Kiss, A magyarországi humanizmus kezdeteiről, 127. n. 31.

27 Ritoókné Szalay, Janus Pannonius és Várad, 173. Ritoókné Szalay explained his return home as a mandatory visit to Várad to report on his studies every three years in order to obtain financial aid from the capitulum.

28 Ladislaus V was in Prague between October 2 and November 19, 1454 according to his seals and with the lack of an archontology by his letters patent published: September 30 (MNL OL – Diplomatikai Fényképgyűjtemény [Photograph Collection of Diplomatics] 237481, DF in the following), October 4 (DF 263383), October 9 (DL 29081), October 11 (DF 246958), October 12 (DF 245878), October 26 (DF 210022 [the seal was lost or isn’t visible]), November 10 (DL 39295), November 14 (DL 44750, 81185, 81186, 81187, DF 244803), November 15 (DL 72492), November 17 (DL 81188), November 19 (DL 14856). On December 18, he was already in Wrocław (DL 14892). The letters we looked into did not provide any information on his whereabouts in the time between. All this is compatible with Ebendorfer’s account on his arrival in Vienna (Wiener Neustadt) February 16, 1455 (Lhotsky, Ebendorfer, 424.8–425.15.) which is confirmed by a letter published by Ladislaus V on February 17 (DL 14971). I would like to thank Iván Kis for the source.

29 Radocsay, Gótikus magyar címereslevelek, 281a.

30 Csoma, Magyar nemzetségi czímerek, 158–59.

31 Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Vol. 5. (E) Lipsiae, 1931–1953. s. v. exaro I. B. 1. In the Latin used in medieval Hungary its meaning was confined to this only. A magyarországi középkori latinság szótára. III. köt. S. v. exaro, -are [Déri].

32 Szilvia Somogyi brought to my attention the verb peraro, which is similar in meaning to exaro and also expresses the act of writing primarily, along with the phrases in which it was used (TLL Vol. X. (P–PORRVS) s. v. peraro, 1. a, b [Werner]), for which I am thankful.

33 We consider it possible that the grant of arms for the literatus Ambrus Mernyei of Nezde by Vladislaus II on December 8, 1498 (DL 50538), which features a green parrot with a white ribbon issuing from its beak with the word AVE repeated three times on it, was inspired by a text by another classical author and Macrobius nonetheless (Macrob. sat. 2. 4. 29–30). However, the uncertainties surrounding this hypothesis are too great to discuss.

2a_HU_MNL_OL_DL_50530_arma_2.tif

The coat-of-arms of Szentei (or Sárói) family, 1456.

Parchment, 98 × 122 mm.

National Archives of Hungary, State Archive.

Archives of Diplomatics, 50530.

(MNL OL - DL 50530.)

 

2019_3_Pócs

pdf

Volume 8 Issue 3 CONTENTS

The Codices of György Handó1

Dániel Pócs
Research Centre for the Humanities
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Florentine bookseller and cartolaio Vespasiano da Bisticci included the life of three Hungarian prelates in his Vite, dedicated to the the lives of his most famous clients. Two of the Hungarians, the archbishop of Esztergom, János Vitéz of Zredna, and the bishop of Pécs, the poet Janus Pannonius, are well-known personalities of early humanism in Hungary and some of their codices prepared in Florence still exist. The third one, however, György Handó (c. 1430–1480), provost of Pécs cathedral chapter from 1465 until his death, is much less known. Scholars of early humanism in Hungary were unable to contextualize the information given by Bisticci on Handó’s library, because no other written source could confirm his accounts, and no manuscript could been identified as a Handó codex. The present study demonstrates that contrary to the common belief that his codices had been completely lost, there are, in fact, twenty manuscripts originating from this early humanistic library. This research result is based on the identification of his coat of arms.

Keywords: György Handó, Orbán Nagylucsei, Péter Garázda, Vespasiano da Bisticci, Bartolomeo Fonzio, Piero Cennini, Corvina Library, Matthias Corvinus, Florence, Buda, humanistic book culture, illuminated books

The library of György Handó (c. 1430–1480) provost of Pécs cathedral chapter and archbishop of Kalocsa has so far been known on the basis of a single source. In the second half of the 1480s, ten years after his retirement, the elderly cartolaio, Vespasiano da Bisticci, the “king of booksellers,” dedicated a collection of biographies to his famous clients, such as rulers, prelates, and humanists. His Vite includes three prelates from Hungary: János Vitéz of Zredna, archbishop of Esztergom, the poet Janus Pannonius, bishop of Pécs, and the abovementioned György Handó. The humanist erudition of János Vitéz and Janus Pannonius and to some extent the profiles of their libraries are well-known to scholars, and some of their manuscripts still survive. The third prelate, however, has long remained in obscurity, since his codices have not been identified yet, and apart from the few sentences by the Florentine cartolaio quoted below, no other written source reports on his bibliophile activity. All we learn from Bisticci is that he bought manuscripts in Florence for 3,000 florins, he deposited them in the Cathedral of Pécs, and he left a priest in charge of his library consisting of 300 codices:

While he was in Rome he received letters from the King bidding him go to Naples to negotiate a marriage between King Ferdinand’s daughter and the King of Hungary. This matter took little time, for with his prudence and dexterity he soon concluded this betrothal. He returned by the way of Florence, where he bought books to the value of three thousand florins for a library he was collecting for his provostship at Cinque Chiese [i.e. Pécs]. The King had already given him the chancellorship, and as all things passed through his hands he did what few men in his position have ever done. To the church of which he was provost he added a very noble chapel […]. He gave a very fine library to the same church, in which were books of every faculty, three hundred volumes or more, and arranged them suitably. He put this library under the charge of a priest with good salary […].2

If we give credit to Bisticci’s story about Handó purchasing books in Florence, then, after the libraries of Janus and Vitéz, Handó’s was the third most significant collection of early humanistic manuscripts in Hungary. (The details of Bisticci’s memoir, however, should not be taken at face-value, as he often exaggerated numbers in his other biographies. The amount of money he mentions is unrealistically high, and the number of volumes must also have been much lower.)3 Nonetheless, not a single codex has been identified as having once been part of Handó’s collection. In this paper, I will argue that his library was never actually lost. In fact, at least twenty of his manuscripts still survive. Some of them have been right in front of us for a long time, as after Handó’s death, several of his manuscripts became part of the collection of the royal library in Buda.

The “Second-Hand” Books of the Bibliotheca Corvina

The stock of King Matthias’s library, the so-called Bibliotheca Corvina, can be categorized in various ways. If provenance is chosen as the criterium of categorization, the manuscripts can be divided into two main groups. Many of the codices were first owned by Matthias (and his wife, Beatrice of Aragon): the luxury manuscripts commissioned for the king in Florence in the late 1480s and the codices with dedicatory texts presented to him by humanists belong to this group. On the other hand, the proportion of second-hand manuscripts, i.e. in which the king’s coat of arms covers that of a previous owner, within the presently known stock of the library is strikingly high. These second-hand volumes prove that the royal library of Buda incorporated smaller or larger parts of other book collections. In addition, several of these manuscripts were certainly produced before the foundation of the royal library in Buda.

In the case of the second-hand manuscripts, the circumstances of their acquisition are often obscure, and sometimes it has been impossible simply to identify their original owners. In the late 1480s, Taddeo Ugoleto, the librarian of Matthias, certainly purchased manuscripts in Florence on behalf of the king, probably including the two volumes that ended up in the Buda library from the collection of Marino Tomacelli, the long-time ambassador of king Ferrante of Aragon in Florence.4 It was also around this time, c. 1488, that Ugoleto bought some (to our present knowledge, at least six) exceptionally sumptuous manuscripts from the library of Francesco Sassetti, head of the Medici bank.5 The mediator in the transaction must have been Bartolomeo Fonzio, who, as the librarian of Sassetti from the early 1470s on, coordinated the formation of the collection, determined its thematics, and, as a scribe or emendator, was often personally involved in the production of the manuscripts.6 He had already gotten in touch with the leading figures of humanism in Hungary, János Vitéz and Janus Pannonius, in the second half of the 1460s, and he was on friendly terms with Péter Garázda, who stayed in Florence in 1468–69. Twenty years later, he participated in the development of the royal library, and he copied some of the manuscripts produced for the king in these years.7 In 1489, he visited Buda, where he presented a collection of his works to Matthias Corvinus, and as an acknowledged teacher of the Florentine Studio, he also delivered an oration at the Hungarian court.8

The Group of Manuscripts with the Crown-and-Lily Coat of Arms

There are two significant groups in the holdings of the Corvina Library that originate from Florence and bear the coat of arms of a previous owner. One of them includes the books that once belonged to Sassetti, while the volumes of the other group contain the coat of arms of a yet unidentified possessor: parti per pale sable and gules with a crown or surmounted by a lily argent.9 (The lily diverges from the form usually used in heraldry, as its side petals quasi embrace the three-lobed middle leaf of the crown.) This coat of arms with a lily and a crown appears on the title page of six manuscripts from the library of King Matthias. In four of the manuscripts, these original coats of arms were covered with the coat of arms of Matthias by the so-called First Heraldic Painter, an illuminator trained most probably in Florence and working in the Buda scriptorium in the late 1480s.10 The four manuscripts in question are as follows: two volumes now preserved in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest, the so-called Liber Alcidi (or Altividi), a Neoplatonic dialogue entitled “De immortalitate animae” by a twelfth-century anonymous author (Cat. 3) (Fig. 1), and a manuscript containing three theological works by Cardinal Bessarion (1403–72) (Cat. 4) (Fig. 2); a Plato manuscript now in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna (Cat. 18) (Fig. 3); and a collection of ancient Roman poetry (Horace, Juvenal, Persius, Cat. 8). (Fig. 4) Though they have been painted over, the original coats of arms are still discernible, as they were not scraped out before the addition of the new coat of arms. (Fig. 5) Thus, the originals show through the secondarily painted royal coats of arms and are visible even to the naked eye, and in almost every manuscript, we can make out the details in gold leaf on the verso side of the folio on which the coat of arms is painted. Furthermore, in several cases, bits of the royal coat of arms have flaked off here and there, as paint peels off easily from gold leaf surfaces, so details of the original heraldic motifs have become visible.

On the other hand, in the two Livy manuscripts held in the Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona, which are the most lavishly decorated codices with the crown-and-lily coat of arms, the heraldic devices of the original owner have not been painted over (Cat. 14–15). (Fig. 6–7) Although the royal coat of arms does not appear in these volumes, they certainly were part of the library of King Matthias. Their characteristic blind stamped and gold-tooled leather binding produced in the late 1480s tells of their Buda provenance. The two volumes contain the third and fourth Decades of the history of Rome by Livy, known as Ab urbe condita. Their title pages were painted by two different Florentine illuminators, and they were copied by Hubertus W., one of the most prolific scribes of the second half of the 1460s and the next Decade. Today, these two volumes form a series together with a third manuscript, containing the first decade of Livy’s history of Rome. This volume, however, was not illuminated in Florence, but in Rome, and the crown-and-lily coat of arms does not appear on its title page.11 Its size also differs from the size of the two other volumes, it was copied by a different scribe, and its binding is not the characteristic Buda-type. It “met” the other two volumes only c. 1580 in Italy, so originally the three could not have formed a series. The original first volume, however, can be identified, and thus, the group of manuscripts with the crown-and-lily coat of arms can be extended. (The three Decades that survived from Livy’s monumental work are usually contained in three separate volumes. Since the content of each volume never varies, series were often created from manuscripts of different provenance as early as the fifteenth century.)

The provenance of the third and fourth Decades suggests that the first volume originally belonging to the series should be found among the manuscripts of the Corvina Library. The stock of the royal library of Buda, as is known today, includes three codices that contain Livy’s first Decade. Among these manuscripts, the copy kept in the Barberini collection of the Vatican Library is the most worthy of our attention (Cat. 7). Its fifteenth-century blind stamped and gold-tooled leather binding is of the same type as the Verona manuscripts, and the parchment leaves and the text blocks are also of the same size. Furthermore, all three volumes have 32 lines per pages. In the middle of the verso of the leaf preceding the present-day incipit page, we find the same type of decoration as in four other volumes of the crown-and-lily group (Cats. 5, 9, 10, 19): a laurel wreath decorated with ribbons and framed with a double line of gold leaf contains the title written in golden Roman capitals. The white vine-stem initials inside the Vatican manuscript also show evidence of a Florentine origin and date the codex to roughly the same period as the Verona volumes. Furthermore, the scribe of the Vatican manuscript must be identified as the one who copied Livy’s third and fourth Decades kept in the Biblioteca Capitolare, i.e. Hubertus.12 Its provenance also resembles that of the Verona codices: they all left the seraglio of Istanbul around 1560, though the Vatican Livy arrived in Italy via a different path. On the basis of this evidence, the Barberini codex can without doubt be considered the first volume of a set of Livy’s Ab Urbe condita of which second and third volumes are the Verona codices.

The coats of arms on the title page could help us identify the manuscript’s first and later owner, but unfortunately this leaf is missing. The first two text leaves had already been removed before the second half of the seventeenth century. Without them, we can only assume that the crown-and-lily coat of arms was covered by that of King Matthias. This would also explain why the coats of arms in the other two volumes were not painted over by the royal devices. In the royal library of Buda, a project of unifying the previously acquired, often not or very modestly decorated manuscripts was launched in the late 1480s, within the framework of which the volumes received the characteristic, so-called Corvina bindings and the king’s coat of arms was painted into the manuscripts.13 The latter was usually necessary to indicate the new owner, King Matthias, in the second-hand codices. The primarily aim, however, was not to remove all signs referring to the previous owner completely, but rather to put the new possessor’s coat of arms in the most prominent place in the manuscripts. Therefore, the previous coats of arms were painted over only on the incipit or title page and were usually left untouched elsewhere. For example, in one of the manuscripts from the library of Francesco Sassetti, the volume containing Cicero’s philosophical works and decorated in the workshop of Mariano del Buono, only two of the coats of arms of the original owner (argent, a bend azure) were painted over. On six other leaves they were left untouched in the marginal decoration, like the Sassetti emblems.14 In the two Verona codices the original coat of arms was most probably spared because placing the device of Matthias Corvinus at the beginning of the first volume of the set was considered sufficient in the Buda scriptorium.

The group of Corvina codices that originally belonged to the “crown-and-lily” owner can be further extended. There is another manuscript produced in Florence in the 1460s of the same provenance decorated with the coat of arms of Matthias Corvinus. This codex contains—similarly to the abovementioned manuscript of the British Library—ancient Roman poetry, in this case the works of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius (Cat. 17) (Fig. 8). On the verso of the title page, beneath the reverse of Matthias’s coat of arms, the distinctive outlines of the lily faintly show through, and we can discern, even more faintly, the shape of the golden crown. This observation calls our attention to the potentials of a more thorough and comprehensive examination of the similar manuscripts from the Corvina Library, which might allow us to clarify their provenance in several cases.

While the manuscripts presented above with the crown-and-lily coat of arms have not revealed anything about their original owner, another volume—the only one not produced in Florence but in Rome—might bring us closer to him. The small codex, consisting of only fifty-six leaves and bound in a typical Corvina leather binding in the late 1480s, contains the Latin translation of three works by Cardinal Bessarion which were originally written in Greek (Cat. 4). (Fig. 2) As for their subjects, they are all related to the Cardinal’s activity at the Council in Florence in 1437–39. Thus, they urge the unification of the Eastern and Western Churches and a crusade against the Turks, but were written as late as 1463–4 and translated to Latin by the author in the following years. Since the Cardinal collected these works into manuscripts in 1467, the copy that ended up in the Bibliotheca Corvina must also have been produced in the late 1460s.15

The white vine-stem decoration on the title page of the manuscript can be attributed to a master active in Rome, and it was copied by Leonardus Job, a scribe who was also active in the city.16 In the middle of the bas-de-page, in a medallion encircled by a laurel wreath, the coat of arms of King Matthias covers that of the author, Cardinal Bessarion (which is clearly visible on the verso), while in the middle of the outer margin, in a smaller medallion, the crown-and-lily coat of arms appears underneath the partly flaked-off paint of Matthias’s raven emblem. (Fig. 9) The arrangement of the coats of arms, the content of the manuscript, and its date suggest that it was a gift by the cardinal to the owner of the crown-and-lily coat of arms. Therefore, we are looking for a person who stayed in Rome in the late 1460s and whose position and contacts allowed him to get in touch with the uppermost circles of the curia. On the basis of these observations, the figure of a Hungarian patron is beginning to emerge, who visited Rome in the second half of the 1460s, presumably as a prelate and an envoy of the king, and around the same time commissioned manuscripts in Florence. Since at least eight of his manuscripts ended up in the library of Matthias Corvinus, we can assume that he passed away before the death of the king in 1490.

 

Figure 9. Basilius Bessarion: De ea parte Evangelii ubi scribitur “Si eum volo manere, quid ad te?”; Epistola ad graecos; De sacramento Eucharistiae.
Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 438, details of fols. 3r and 3v

Hungarian research has never really dealt with this group of manuscripts, although it would have been worthy of our attention for several reasons. First and foremost, the group exceeds the eight volumes so far mentioned. Albinia de la Mare, as a by-product of her ground-breaking research on fifteenth-century Florentine scribes, listed seventeen manuscripts (eleven beyond the previously known six codices from the Corvina Library) that contain the crown-and-lily coat of arms, and she identified their first owner as a humanist from Hungary.17 This group, which is thus of considerable size, seems surprisingly homogeneous. Apart from three manuscripts originating from Rome, the others were produced in Florence in the late 1460s, and their title pages were adorned with simple white vine-stem (bianchi girari) decorations. Most of them are written on parchment, and they contain exclusively Latin texts. Some of them, such as the codex containing the military treatises by Aelianus and Onosander (it is now in the Harvard University Library), the Justin manuscript in Besançon, and the Liber Alcidi from the National Széchényi Library in Budapest, still preserve their original, Florentine blind-tooled leather bindings (Cat. 2, 3, 5). (Fig. 9)

Although the subjects of the manuscripts vary considerably, it is obviously a humanistic book collection. In addition to writings by the classical Greek and Roman historiographers (Herodotus, Livy, Justin) (Fig. 11, 17), there are texts of both Pliny the Elder and the Younger, and with the exception of Virgil and Ovid, all the important ancient Roman poets are present (Catullus, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, Juvenal). Key texts of Greek philosophy (Aristotle, Plato) (Fig. 12–13) in contemporary Latin translations appear in a surprisingly high number, and the group also includes a rare medieval Neoplatonic text in the Hermetic tradition, the De immortalitate animae or Liber Alcidi, which was known, copied, and quoted by Marsilio Ficino in the 1450s. In addition, there are military treatises by Aelianus and Onosander (Fig. 14), works by texts of the early Church Fathers frequently read in the fifteenth century, such as the Commentary on the Psalms by Saint John Chrysostom (Cat. 13), the complete works of Pseudo-Dionysius translated by Ambrogio Traversari (Fig. 15), and the works of Lactantius. (Fig. 16) The presence of Vitruvius’s treatise on architecture (Cat. 6) is of special interest. Another manuscript originating from Rome figures on the list compiled by De la Mare: the paper codex from the Universitätsbibliothek of Basel, which contains the Commentary on Ptolemy’s Almagest by George of Trebizond.18 (Cat. 1) The presence of this latter text in the group offers insights into the context of the whole library, as its author dedicated it to King Matthias Corvinus in the late 1460s, in the same period when he sent his other works and translations to János Vitéz and Janus Pannonius.19 Although the Basel manuscript does not contain the dedication to the king, together with the Bessarion codex they suggest that their original owner belonged to the intellectual milieu of János Vitéz, which at this time, when the organization of the university in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia) was high on the agenda, had close contacts with two Greek scholars living in Rome: Cardinal Bessarion and George of Trebizond.20

The group of manuscripts was apparently produced within a very short period of time. Based on their codicological and stylistic features, all of them can be dated, with certainty, to the second half of the 1460s. It is especially telling, for example, that regarding their illumination, they exclusively contain white vine-stem decoration and no trace of the floral ornamentation that replaced the previous fashion in Florence in the first half of the 1470s. A more precise dating is difficult, because only one of the manuscripts, the Justin codex in Besançon, has a dated colophon (Cat. 2), which, however, perfectly fits into the time frame: the copying was finished in November 1468.

Based on De la Mare’s research, Gabriella Mori Beltrami analysed the group, focusing primarily on the stylistic connections of the illuminations, and she concluded that the manuscripts of Florentine origin must have been produced in the workshop of Vespasiano da Bisticci.21 She distinguished two main masters among the illuminators who worked on the manuscripts: one of them decorated Livy’s third Decade now in Verona (Cat. 14) (Fig. 6), the Aelianus and Onosander manuscript (Cat. 5) (Fig. 14), and at least five other codices (Cats. 6, 9, 10, 11, 19) (Fig. 12, 15, 16), while the other illuminated Livy’s Fourth Decade (Cat. 15) (Fig. 7) and the Justin manuscript in Besançon (Cat. 2).22 (Fig. 17) The latter, in my opinion, comes from the circle of Cosimo Rosselli: the putti on the title pages of these manuscripts resemble very much the figures of children on his panel paintings dated to the second half of the 1460s and the putti in illuminated codices attributed to him and produced in the same period. These putti are drawn with firm outlines but seem oversized and overweight for the ornamental details of the border decorations, while their composition, standing in overemphasized contraposto with their hands resting on their hip with the palm turned outwards recalls Donatello’s bronze David (Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, c. 1440).23 (Fig. 18)

The attribution of the miniatures in the first group presents us with a more complex issue of style criticism. Previously, Annarosa Garzelli had identified the illuminator of the third Decade in Verona with the so-called Maestro delle Deche di Alfonso d’Aragona.24 Beltrami, however, rightly pointed out that this illuminator, who was active in Florence in the 1450s, cannot be the same master who decorated the manuscripts with the crown-and-lily coat of arms much later. According to her, the title pages of the Livy and the Aelianus manuscripts should be attributed to another master, namely Bartolomeo di Domenico di Guido, who worked together with Francesco d’Antonio del Chierico, the leading illuminator in Florence in the 1470s.25 I believe, however, that this attribution needs revision. First, I doubt that the Livy manuscript in Verona and the Aelianus manuscript were illuminated by the same hand, and second, this attribution seems to be unconvincing.

I can agree with Beltrami that the master of the Livy manuscript in Verona was also the illuminator of other manuscripts belonging to the first group: one of the Aristotle manuscripts in the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the two codices in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena. The details of the miniatures on the title pages of these manuscripts (at least the details that can be taken into consideration when it comes to attribution, especially the figures, i.e. the putti) confirm that they were all made by the same hand. (Fig. 19) In my opinion, however, they are less close to the works attributed to Bartolomeo di Domenico di Guido with relative certainty than to the miniatures of another, very prolific master of the period in Florence, namely Mariano del Buono.26 At the same time, the putti of the Aelianus manuscript now at the Harvard library, which are more schematic and lack any modelling of light and shadow effects, are similar to the works of another Florentine illuminator, Ser Benedetto di Silvestro. These proposals for new attributions, however, did not affect the validity of Beltrami’s conclusion: both illuminators worked intensively for Vespasiano da Bisticci in this period.

In addition to Beltrami’s observations, another feature of the manuscripts containing the crown-and-lily coat of arms also supports the hypothesis that Bisticci was involved in their production: although several illuminators and scribes cooperated in their production, their general appearance is very homogeneous. The surviving original leather bindings and the illuminated decoration of the tables of content on the verso of the leaf preceding the title page, which are written in Roman capitals with gold leaves and adorned with the same type of ornaments, all suggest that this uniformity was deliberate on the part of the creators. The manuscripts produced in Bisticci’s workshop in the same period for the Urbino library of Federico da Montefeltro, were also given similar, uniform decoration.27 Another Corvina manuscript now in the Budapest University Library which originally belonged to one of the Hungarian bibliophile prelates, presumably to Vitéz or Janus Pannonius, also contains the same type of title-page decoration.28 (Fig. 20) The peculiarity of this manuscript is that it is the only codex produced for a Hungarian patron in Florence and adorned with a white vine-stem decoration that bears the signature of the cartolaio: according to the note of production on the first flyleaf, it was made in the workshop of Vespasiano da Bisticci.29 The scribes identified by De la Mare lead us to the same conclusion. Most of the manuscripts with the crown-and-lily coat of arms were copied by scribes who were primarily working for Bisticci around this time, such as Sinibaldus (Cats. 8, 9), Hubertus (Cats. 5, 7, 14, 15), and the so-called “Scribe of Venezia, Bibl. Marciana lat. Z.58” (Cat. 18, 20), who received his name of convenience after a set of manuscripts containing the works of Saint Augustin, which were produced in the cartolaio’s workshop for Cardinal Bessarion between 1470 and 1472.30

Péter Garázda and Bartolomeo Fonzio

The research of De la Mare yielded another important finding: she noted that Bartolomeo Fonzio had contributed to most of the manuscripts as emendator or the scribe of the table of contents. Moreover, one of the Aristotle manuscripts in Oxford was entirely copied by Fonzio (Cat. 11). (Fig. 12) This observation allows us to date a part of the manuscripts with more precision, or at least it provides us with a probable terminus ante quem, as Fonzio left Florence in summer 1469 and stayed in Ferrara until the death of Borso d’Este in 1471.31 By all indications, his contribution to the manuscripts should be dated before his departure from Florence. It is necessary to remark, however, that De la Mare recognised Fonzio’s hand only in the codices that do not bear any sign of ever having been part of the Corvina Library. Based on this alone, we cannot, for the present, set up a relative chronology within the whole group. It may be mere coincidence.

Fonzio’s participation in the production of the manuscripts is important for at least two reasons. First, it supports the conclusion that Bisticci was the organizer of the work, as the young humanist, who was living in narrow circumstances at the time, worked for Bisticci’s workshop as a professional scribe.32 Second, if we suppose that the manuscripts with the crown-and-lily coat of arms were produced for a Hungarian patron, and, as we have seen the texts were emended by Fonzio, then the production of this group of manuscripts may be connected to one of the most important episodes of early humanistic book culture in Hungary, i.e. the events that took place in Florence in 1468–69.

Fonzio first got in touch with Hungarian humanists at this time, when Péter Garázda, a relative of Janus Pannonius, after finishing his studies in Ferrara, arrived in Florence around 1468.33 Garázda’s stay in Florence even left a trace in the diplomatic correspondence between Florence and Matthias Corvinus: the Signoria sent two lions to the King of Hungary as a gift in December 1469, and the official cover letter addressed to Matthias mentioned Garázda as somebody whom “pro cive carum haberemus.”34 His friendship with Fonzio can also be dated to this period, as indicated by his correspondence with the Florentine humanist after 1471, when Garázda left Florence, as well as by his manuscripts.35 All four codices of Garázda that are known to us were produced in Florence, and three of them contain his coat of arms. The codicological features of the manuscripts can be interpreted as proof of cooperation between the members of a humanist fellowship: two of the manuscripts were emended by Fonzio, and the Macrobius codex in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich was not only copied and signed by him (this is the only case when he signed a work in the colophon), but the pen-and-ink drawings can also be attributed to him.36 This circle of friends included others as well, such as the Dominican friar Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a member of a wealthy and influential Florentine family who amassed an immense library over the course of his life. The Greek passages in Garázda’s manuscripts, including the abovementioned Macrobius codex, were copied by Vespucci, who mastered the language. He is also present in the manuscripts of Hungarian humanists by means of heraldic representation: the title page of Garázda’s Cicero manuscript bears the combined coat of arms of Vespucci and the Hungarian humanist as testimony of their friendship, and in the third volume of János Vitéz’s lavishly decorated three-volume series of Livy, which contains marginal notes by Fonzio, some wasps (vespe), the heraldic animal of the Vespucci family, appear in the border decoration.37 The Livy manuscripts were probably commissioned by Garázda as a gift for the archbishop of Esztergom, which would explain why Garázda’s coat of arms appears in the title page of the third volume.

Some of the manuscripts with the crown-and-lily coat of arms fit well into this milieu: two of them have exactly the same content as two of Garázda’s four known codices: the Lactantius held in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena (Cat. 9) is the pendant of a manuscript with the coat of arms of Garázda now held in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, and the Justin codex in Besançon (Cat. 2) has a twin in Prague that contains an autograph possessor’s note by Garázda.38 There are other connections among these groups of manuscripts: the other emendator of the Justin manuscript was Piero Cennini, whose friendship with both Garázda and Fonzio in this period is well documented and who copied several of János Vitéz’s manuscripts, as well as other Florentine codices with white vine-stem decoration that once belonged to the stock of the Corvina Library. Based on Cennini’s dated colophons, he may have been working exclusively for Hungarian patrons between spring 1467 and November 1468. Chronologically, the Justin manuscript in Besançon fits exactly to the end of this series.39

Who could have been the patron and first owner of this important manuscript collection, which, without exaggeration, can be considered a library? A codex which has never been linked with the manuscripts containing the crown-and-lily coat of arms can bring us closer to an answer to this question. Among the early humanistic manuscripts of Hungarian provenance held in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, there are two that bear the episcopal coat of arms of Orbán Nagylucsei. Both were, beyond doubt, produced in Florence in the late 1460s. Three margins of their title pages are decorated with white vine-stem illumination of exceptionally high quality, and the coat of arms in the middle of the bas-de-page is flanked by two winged putti. The one that contains Marsilio Ficino’s commentary on Plato has rightly been related to Janus Pannonius. (Fig. 21) According to the date in the colophon of Ficino’s autograph copy, the philosopher had completed the text of the Commentarium in Platonis Convivium de amore by July 1469.40 A few weeks after finishing the text, Ficino added a dedication addressed to Janus Pannonius and sent his work to Hungary. The Viennese manuscript is the only one that contains this personal, probably autograph dedication. Thus, by all indications, it was the original copy of Janus.41 The coat of arms of Nagylucsei must be a later addition, since he was appointed bishop (of Győr) as late as 1481, and here, as in every other manuscript that once belonged to him, the shield is surmounted by a mitre.42

The other codex (Cat. 16), the Pliny manuscript (ÖNB, Cod. 48) (Fig. 22), originates from a different owner: it has not been recorded yet that under Nagylucsei’s coat of arms, traces of another heraldic device are visible even to the naked eye. (Fig. 23) On the heraldic right side of the shield (parti per bend, gules and azure), a black field appears beneath the blue paint, while on the left of the golden six-point star that belongs to Nagylucsei’s coat of arms, we can see traces of another charge painted with an apparently different color of gold leaf.43 This tiny detail, however, can be identified with the left leaf of a crown, the heraldic motif well-known to us from the manuscripts with the crown-and-lily coat of arms. An oval form is also clearly visible in the lower part of the shield: based on the crown-and-lily coats of arms in the other manuscripts, it represents, in foreshortening, the lower rim of the crown that is typically depicted from below. Furthermore, the outline of the lozenge-shaped middle petal of the lily also shows through the gules of Nagylucsei’s coat of arms. The shape of the lily is even more discernible on the previous page, i.e. the verso of the front flyleaf (fol. Iv), as this motif, probably painted in silver leaf, left its print there. The manuscript was copied by Piero Cennini and his signed colophon contains the date January 11, 1469. The text was emended by Fonzio, who also wrote the table of contents on the verso of the first flyleaf (fol. Iv).44

György Handó

How could Orbán Nagylucsei acquire a manuscript from a collection the other items of which ended up in the royal library? To answer this question, it is worth confronting the supposed provenance of the other Viennese manuscript with the career of Nagylucsei. Assuming that the first owner of the Ficino manuscript was indeed Janus, the most plausible place where Nagylucsei could have acquired it is Pécs. Nagylucsei, who had a successful career in the royal court in the 1480s, had climbed the ecclesiastical career ladder rung by rung in the previous decade. First, he served as lector of Buda (1472), then provost of Esztergom (1473–74) and Fehérvár, finally, in 1480, a year and a half before his appointment as Bishop of Győr, he received the title of provost of Pécs cathedral chapter.45 He would have acquired Janus’s manuscript most probably in the last of these positions, and it seems that there, he had access to other codices as well. As we know from the biographies of Vespasiano da Bisticci, there was, in addition to Janus’s collection, another significant humanistic library in Pécs which consisted mainly of manuscripts produced in Florence: the library of György Handó.46 The problem is that we cannot verify Bisticci’s story. In contrast with his biography of Vitéz and Janus, which can be corroborated (at least in part) by other contemporary written sources and surviving codices, which thus prove that they were both bibliophiles, we know nothing about Handó’s library apart from what Bisticci wrote. No other source has come to light that would support the cartolaio’s words. Neither Fonzio nor Garázda mentions having been in touch with anybody, apart from Vitéz and Janus, from Hungary who commissioned manuscripts in Florence in larger quantities. No manuscript is known with a possessor’s note by Handó, and we have no information on any contemporary or later sources from Hungary which contain even a passing mention of this allegedly rich library so highly esteemed by Bisticci.

The desire to find the manuscripts of the Pécs cathedral’s chapter library has, of course, often arisen among scholars of Hungarian humanism, and attempts have also been made to localize the place of the library,47 but it seems as if, almost unconsciously, no one has taken Bisticci’s text seriously. One reason for this skepticism, which has never been put into words but is almost tangible, is that, compared to Vitéz and Janus, the figure of Handó seems very modest. It is perplexing that we do not know of any lines by him which would suggest that he was interested in book collecting and humanist culture or that he studied ancient authors. In the shadow of Vitéz and Janus, Handó cannot be more than an obscure figure with vague outlines. This desperate situation has recently led to the (in a way logical) hypothesis that this part of Bisticci’s biography does not refer to György Handó, and the cartolaio’s client was not the archbishop of Kalocsa, but another Hungarian, György Kosztolányi (known as Georgius Polycarpus).48 It seems that Bisticci did actually incorporate details of Kosztolányi’s life into his memoir on Handó, and until the publication of Vilmos Fraknói’s study on the diplomats of Matthias, modern historiography considered the two Györgys identical.49 Their lives indeed bore many similarities. In the 1460s, both had successful careers as the king’s ambassadors, and as such, they visited Rome several times in the second half of the decade. Kosztolányi, however, settled in Rome, married the daughter of George of Trebizond, and entered the service of the curia, while Handó’s career continued very differently.

György Handó was born in Kálmáncsehi, a small country town around 1430, presumably to a civic family, or he might have risen from the ranks of the peasantry.50 He started his studies in 1445 in the faculty of liberal arts at the university in Vienna. He continued studying in Ferrara, where he obtained a degree of doctor of canon law in 1451.51 Handó belonged to the group of ecclesiastics who rose from low ranks, but who were able to pursue further study abroad and then made good use of their education and knowledge in court service at the royal chancellery. Like many others, Handó was most probably supported in his career by János Vitéz and perhaps also by Janus Pannonius, as the latter was bishop of Pécs, where Handó headed the chapter of the cathedral in the same period. He became provost of Pécs in 1465, and he held this benefice until 1480.52

In the second half of the 1460s, he visited Rome several times as the ambassador of Matthias Corvinus in order to negotiate with Pope Paul II on behalf of the king. The pope was not the only person, however, with whom he negotiated. In 1467, when he departed on his Roman mission, he armed himself with five recommendations from Matthias. These recommendations were addressed to cardinals of the papal curia, although we do not know them by name.53 Since Handó’s mission aimed to gain the support of the pope and other Italian states for a campaign against the Turks, one of the addressees must have been Bessarion, who was one of the most influential cardinals in the curia and the keenest supporter of a war against the Turks. In the last few years of his life, Handó became one of the most important figures of the royal council exceptionally quickly. From 1476 on, he was treasurer for two years. In 1478, after the death of Gábor Matucsinai, he received the archbishopric of Kalocsa and, together with it, the title of principal and privy chancellor.54 His steeply rising career ended only with his death in 1480.

Bisticci seems to have remembered well the clients whom he had known personally. Even two decades later, he kept track of their careers. In the case of Handó, for example, he knew precisely that in his last years, he became principal chancellor and archbishop of Kalocsa, even if the most important events of the biography (the purchases of manuscripts in Florence), occurred much earlier.55 This earlier period can also be dated with certainty, as according to Bisticci, Handó bought the manuscripts when, returning from his embassy in Naples, he stopped in Florence. This embassy, the goal of which was to prepare the dynastic marriage with the House of Aragon, took place in 1469.56 Here, of course, we have to be cautious. Although Handó visited Florence in the second half of the 1460s, we cannot confirm that he was in the city in the year suggested by Bisticci. We have no further information on Handó’s presence in Florence in 1469.57 There is no reason to doubt, however, that the cartolaio met Handó in personal. If Bisticci was also right about the time when Handó commissioned the manuscripts, then it coincides with the period when Garázda was in town and the codices with the crown-and-lily coat of arms were produced.

This context throws new light upon a document published by Alessandro Daneloni. The contract, which is dated January 17, 1469 and was issued in Florence by Piero Cennini as a professional notary, designates Garázda, present as one of the contracting parties, as provost of Pozsega and canon of Pécs cathedral chapter.58 The document was issued only six days after Cennini finished the copying of the Pliny manuscript, which came into the possession of Nagylucsei, but had originally bore the crown-and-lily coat of arms. Furthermore, the document proves that Garázda had already been member of the Pécs cathedral chapter, which was headed by Handó.59 Given this, it seems plausible that at this time in Florence, Garázda was involved in commissioning not only Vitéz’s manuscripts, but also those with the crown-and-lily coat of arms. The chronological frame of their production, their codicilogical features, their Florentine and Roman provenance, and their connections with Hungarian humanists and their codices all suggest that Handó could have been the patron and original possessor of the “crown-and-lily” group of manuscripts. The provenance of the Pliny manuscript with Nagylucsei’s coat of arms also suggests this. When Pope Sixtus IV approved Handó’s appointment as archbishop of Kalocsa, also permitted the Hungarian prelate to keep his prebend of Pécs.60 As a result, no new provost of Pécs was appointed until the death of the archbishop of Kalocsa.61 After Handó’s death (1480), the Pécs benefice also became vacant, and since Orbán Nagylucsei followed Handó as treasurer when the latter was appointed principal chancellor, he also succeeded Handó in this ecclesiastical benefice. Thus, Nagylucsei was Handó’s direct successor at the head of the Pécs cathedral chapter.62

The Missing Link: The Identification of the Coat of Arms

If Handó was the first owner of the manuscripts with the crown-and-lily coat of arms, their fortune also becomes comprehensible. The manuscripts of the chapter library in Pécs must have remained there, even after his appointment as archbishop of Kalocsa, and after his death, Nagylucsei took possession of some of his (and perhaps Janus’s) books. If this is what happened, no wonder we lack sources on Handó’s library: ten years after its creation, it had ceased to exist. It logically follows that the manuscripts with the crown-and-lily coat of arms (and perhaps not only those whose Corvina-provenance is obvious)63 ended up in the royal library in the 1480s through the intermediary of Nagylucsei, who was provably in touch with the Buda scriptorium, where he had both the illumination and the binding of his Psalter executed. This Psalter is the only known manuscript beyond the stock of the Corvina Library that was given the same type of gilded leather binding as the royal codices.64 Therefore, we probably should attribute a more important role to the treasurer in the development of the Corvina Library.

The success of our attempt to identify Handó’s library and the validity of all the hypotheses formulated above stand or fall on proving one single thing: did the crown-and-lily coat of arms belong to Handó? The answer is not easy, as the grant of arms of the low-born Handó is missing, we know nothing about any constructions by him in Pécs where his carved coat of arms might come to light, and his tomb, which was probably set up in the cathedral of Kalocsa, did not survive. At the same time, Handó held important ecclesiastical and secular positions for decades, as a result of which he issued several sealed charters, some of which survive. However, those known to me are not preserved in Hungary and thus slipped the notice of researchers. On the old, black and white reproductions of charters kept abroad that can be consulted in the Photo Collection of the Hungarian National Archives (HNA, DF), the seals, often preserved whole, appear as blurred, dark stains. On the original charters, however, they are clearly discernible. The best preserved are the pendent seals attached to three charters now held in the Central Archive of Warsaw, that were issued on February 21, 1474, near the Polish border, in Szepesófalu (Spišská Stará Ves, Slovakia) on the occasion of the peace treaty between Matthias, King of Hungary and Casimir IV, King of Poland.65 (Fig. 24) One of the six issuers was György Handó, provost of Pécs and papal protonotary, who sealed the document, corresponding to the intitulation, at the fifth place.66 The print that his octagonal signet-ring left in the red wax is preserved in perfect condition. It consists of a crown with three leaves surmounted by a lily. (Fig. 25)

 

Figure 25. Pendent seal of György Handó, provost of Pécs cathedral chapter.

Warsaw, Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych, Zbiór dokumentów pergaminowych, 5583, detail

 

Catalogue: The Manuscripts of György Handó

The list below, which is not intended as a detailed descriptive catalogue, contains only the manuscripts that were identifiable with a high degree of certainty. I only gave the most important codicological data, if they were available to me. I considered it necessary to provide information on the later provenance of the manuscripts, and in those cases in which it seemed possible, I made some remarks on the attribution of the illumination. The approximate date of each manuscript is not given, because, based on the conclusions I have presented in this essay, I date the whole group between c. 1465/68 and 1470. The two codices dated in the colophon are Cat. 2 (November 1468) and Cat. 16 (January 11, 1469). Seventeen manuscripts were produced in Florence, three (Cats. 1, 4, 12) in Rome. In the case of the codices that ended up in the Corvina Library (Cats. 3, 4, 7, 8, 14, 15, 17, 18), I quoted Hungarian secondary literature before 1990 only where appropriate. Previous literature can be found in Bibliotheca Corviniana by Csaba Csapodi and Klára Csapodi-Gárdonyi in the relevant entry.

 

1. Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, F. V. 2267

Georgius Trapezuntius: Commentarii in Ptolemaei Almagestum.

On paper, 356 fols., 325×225 mm. Written in humanistic cursive by the scribe, according to Albinia de la Mare, “Michael Laurentii Claromontensis diocesis.”68 Both the content and the scribe of the manuscript suggest that it was produced in Rome.69 The manuscript does not contain the dedication that Trapezuntius attached to his Commentaries on Ptolemy’s Almagest and addressed to Matthias Corvinus. The dedicatory copy sent to the king did not survive, but the text of the dedication was preserved in a contemporary manuscript which also contains autograph emendations by George of Trebizond.70 According to possessor’s notes on fol. 4r, the Basel manuscript was later owned by Heinrich Petri (1508–79), then Remigius Faesch (1595–1667).

 

2. Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, Cod. Lat. 83271

M. Iunianus Iustinus: Historiarum Philippicarum Trogi Pompei epitome.

On parchment, 152 fols. 265×175 mm. Original Florentine, blind-tooled, brown leather binding. Written in humanistic book script. Scribe: Nicolaus Riccius spinosus, but the colophon containing his name was actually written by Piero Cennini. Annotations by Cennini and Bartolomeo Fonzio.72 The copying is dated November 1468 in the colophon: “Transcriptum Florentiae mense Novembri. Anno salutis nostrae MCCCCLXVIII. Nicholaus Echinnus Riccius descripsit.” For the illuminator, see Cat. 15. In the right margin of fol. 2r, there are the seventeenth-century shelf marks of the library of Jean-Baptiste Boisot (1638–94) and the public library of Saint-Vincent of Besançon founded by him: “Cinquante / quattre,” below “h. 19 / Cotte cent / quarante et / un.” (Similar shelf marks, of the same format and by the same hand, appear in Cod. Lat. 166 of the Bibliothèque Municipale of Besançon, which once belonged to the Corvina Library but previously was owned by an unidentified cardinal in the 1450s: “Cinquante / huit,” below “h. 19 / Cotte cent vingt / deux.”

3. Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 41873

Liber Altividi de immortalitate animae.

On parchment, III, 53, III* fols., 260×186 mm. Original Florentine, blind-tooled, brown leather binding. Written in semi-humanistic book script by an unidentified scribe. The upper, lower, and inner margins of the title page are decorated with Florentine white vine-stem illumination. Although the author of the text is anonymous, based on the characters, the work has traditionally been attributed to the otherwise unknown Alcidus and Altividus, whose names have been transmitted in the title. (The text is usually called as Liber Alcidi, Alcidus or Liber Altividi). For a long time, the author was wrongly identified with the fourth-century Neoplatonic writer, Calcidius, who translated Plato’s Timaeus into Latin and wrote commentaries on the dialogue.74 In fact, the work was written in the second half of the twelfth century and can be connected to the cultural milieu of the royal court of the Norman kingdom of Sicily, but its spread was very restricted. Only five manuscripts survived that contain the entire text, and all of them are related to Florence. The earliest one is a thirteenth-century manuscript, which was in the possession of the humanist chancellor Coluccio Salutati in the last third of the fourteenth century, and together with his book collection, it ended up in the library of San Marco through the intermediary of Niccolò Niccoli.75 The other four manuscripts, including the Budapest copy, were all produced in Florence in the fifteenth century.76 Marsilio Ficino knew the text of the De immortalitate animae well and even used it: he copied part of it, the discourse on the virtues, into one of his manuscripts.77 The Budapest manuscript ended up in the Corvina Library. It was then acquired by Johannes Cuspinianus in Buda. It was purchased, together with Cuspinianus’s library, by Johann Fabri, bishop of Vienna, who bequeathed his book collection in 1540 to the Saint Nicholas College in Vienna founded by him (printed ex libris on fol. IIr, handwritten note on fol. 52v). The library of the college was incorporated into the Hofbibliothek in 1756. Finally, it was transferred to Hungary in accordance with the Venice Agreement in 1932 (for the agreement, see note 17). Original shelf mark: ÖNB, Cod. 2391.

 

4. Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 43878

Basilius Bessarion: De ea parte Evangelii ubi scribitur: “Si eum volo manere, quid ad te?”; Epistola ad graecos; De sacramento Eucharistiae.

On parchment, II, 56 fols., 285×200 mm. Original blind stamped and gold-tooled Corvina binding produced in the Buda scriptorium in the late 1480s. Written in humanistic book script by Leonardus Job in Rome. Signed in the colophon on fol. 16r: “Finis / Deo gr(ati)as. / Amen Leonard(us) Iob” and on fol. 25r: “Finis / Deo gr(ati)as. / Amen / LEONARD(us) IOB / S(crip)S(it).”79 The white vine-stem decoration on the four margins of the title page (fol. 3r) can be attributed to a master active in Rome.80

After the death of Matthias Corvinus (1490), the manuscript remained in Buda at least for two decades, since it was used for the first edition of the second and third texts, published in Strasburg (Argentorati, Matthias Schürer, 1513). According to the preface to the printed edition (p. III. S.), the publisher was provided with the text by Augustinus Olomucensis (1467–1513), provost and royal vice chancellor, who copied the two texts in Buda. Later (but before 1530), the manuscript was acquired by Johann Fabri, bishop of Vienna, together with other volumes from the royal library (printed ex libris glued onto the front pastedown, cf. Cat. 3.). After his death, it ended up in the library of Saint Nicholas College, then, in the eighteenth century, it became part of the collection of the Benedictine Abbey of Göttweig. The Hungarian State purchased it from the antiquarian József Faragó for the National Széchényi Library.

 

5. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Ms. Richardson 1681

Aelianus Tacticus: De instruendis aciebus (translated to Latin by Theodorus Gaza);

Onosander: De optimo imperatore (translated to Latin by Nicolaus Secundinus).

On parchment, 85 fols., 287×216 mm. Original Florentine, blind-tooled leather binding82 (similar bindings: Cats. 2, 3) Written in humanistic book script attributed to Hubertus W.83 The illuminated decoration of the table of contents on the verso of the leaf preceding the title page has the same type as Cats. 7, 9, 10, and 19. The manuscript is supposed to originate from the library of Antal György Apponyi (1751–1817), which he founded in 1774 in Vienna. His son, Antal Apponyi moved the library first to the family mansion in Hőgyész, then to his palace in Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia), built in 1827. Then, the library was transferred to the family mansion in Upper Hungary, in Nagy-Appony (Oponice, Slovakia). In the second half of the nineteenth century, the manuscript was not unknown to Hungarian scholars.84 It was on display as part of the charity exhibition organized for the flood victims in 1876 in Budapest and the book exhibition which opened in 1882 in the Palace of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.85 In 1892, Lajos Apponyi (1849–1909) auctioned off a considerable part of his collection, including this manuscript, at Sotheby’s in London.86 Edith Hoffmann recognized that the coat of arms in the manuscript is the same found in several manuscripts from the Corvina Library, but her observation remained unnoticed by other scholars.87

Most of the Hungarian newspapers that reported on the auction highlighted the Aelianus manuscript, because the sale was considered a huge loss because of its presumed Corvina provenance.88 The manuscript was purchased at the London auction by Robert Hoe (New York), then it ended up in the possession of William King Richardson, who bequeathed his important manuscript collection to the Harvard College Library in 1951. The Apponyi provenance does not prove, of course, that the manuscript was constantly in Hungary between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. For example, one of the most significant pieces of the library of Antal György Apponyi, auctioned off in 1892, a Ptolemy manuscript that was also produced in Florence c. 1470 and was illustrated with 27 double-page maps, ended up in the possession of the founder of the library in 1813 at the auction of the famous Bibliotheca Ebneriana in Nuremberg.89

 

6. Chatsworth, The Duke of Devonshire Collection90

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio: De architectura libri X.

On parchment, 133 fols., 267×175mm. Eighteenth–nineteenth-century gold-tooled leather binding. Written in humanistic book script by an unidentified scribe, with emendations by Bartolomeo Fonzio.91 The margins of the title page are adorned with white vine-stem decoration, the coat of arms is encircled by a green laurel wreath, held by two winged putti. It has been in the Devonshire collection since the eighteenth century.

This manuscript, which, unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to study in the original, might help to resolve an important problem. As Gábor Hajnóczi has proven, in 1487, Antonio Bonfini must have used a Vitruvius manuscript for his translation of Filarete’s treatise on architecture (contained in the so-called Averulinus corvina, a manuscript from the Corvina Library: Venice, BNM, Cod. Marc. Lat. VIII. 2 [=2796]).92 This Vitruvius manuscript, however, cannot be the one that Ludovico Sforza (il Moro) sent from Milan to Hungary for John Corvinus, illegitimate son of King Matthias, as this happened a year later.93 (Budapest, UL, Cod. Lat. 32.) Since apart from this copy of Milanese origin, we have not so far known of any Vitruvius manuscript that was in Hungary in the late fifteenth century, the philological examination of the codex from Handó’s library, especially a search for any marginal notes by Bonfini, would be of special interest. If the Chatsworth manuscript were indeed the copy used by Bonfini, it would also prove, at least in this specific case, that more volumes ended up in the royal library from Handó’s book collection than those that bear the obvious codicological signs of their Corvina provenance (addition of the royal coat-of-arms, corvina-binding, etc.).

 

7. Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. Lat. 16894

Titus Livius: Ab urbe condita, Decas I.

On parchment, I, 212, I* fols., 357×242 mm. Original, blind stamped and gold-tooled corvina leather binding produced in Buda in the late 1480s. Written in humanistic book script. The scribe has not been identified before, but actually he is identical with the scribe of the two Livy codices in the Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona (Cats. 14–15.), Hubertus W.

The title on fol. Iv is written in golden antiqua capitals, in seven lines, in the middle of the page encircled by a green laurel wreath which is tied on both sides with rippling blue ribbon. The illuminated decoration of the table of contents on the verso of the leaf preceding the title page has the same type as Cats. 5, 9, 10, 19. The text that begins according to modern numbering on fol. 1r (“incerte stirpis patrem nuncupat…”) is the end of the second sentence of Decas I, I, 4. Based on the length of the missing text, two leaves were removed from the beginning of the manuscript before the second half of the seventeenth century. The manuscript was acquired by Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (Bousbeque) (1522–92), imperial envoy between 1556 and 1562 in Istanbul, together with other manuscripts originating from the Corvina Library. Then, according to a note on the top of fol. Ir, it ended up in the collection of Lucas Wijngaert of Bruges, from whom it went into the possession of Olivier de Wree (1596–1652), another humanist in Bruges (his possessor’s note is in the upper left corner of fol. Iv). The manuscript became part of the Vatican Library together with the book collection of Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1597–1679).95 In the manuscript catalogue compiled in the second half of the seventeenth century, the cardinal’s librarian, Carlo Moroni, already recorded that the title page was missing. The original shelf mark of the manuscript in the Barberini collection was: 2504.

 

8. London, British Library, Lansdowne Ms. 83696

Q. Horatius Flaccus: Epistolarum libri II; De arte poetica; Sermonum libri II; Carminum libri IV; Epodon; Carmen saeculare;

Decius Junius Juvenalis: Satirae;

Aulus Persius Flaccus: Satirae

On parchment, II, 234, III* fols., 240×155 mm. Gold-tooled blue leather binding produced after 1600. Written in humanistic book script (humanistica rotunda) attributed to the scribe Sinibaldus C.97 On the verso of the flyleaf preceding the title page (fol. 2v), a profile portrait of King Matthias Corvinus was painted in the last quarter of the sixteenth century or later. The portrait follows the so-called Mantegna-type, but derives directly from the woodcut by Tobias Stimmer published in 1575 in the Basel edition of Paolo Giovio’s Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium.98 Traces of a five-line text which has been scraped out, are visible partly above, partly underneath the portrait. Florentine white vine-stem illumination decorates the lower, upper, and inner margins of the title page (fol. 3r). The manuscript was acquired by Antal Verancsics, bishop of Pécs in Istanbul in 1555–57.

 

9. Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Cod. Lat. 384 (=α.M.8.18)99

L. Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius: Divinarum institutionum contra gentiles ad Constantinum imperatorem; Epitome sexti et septimi libri; De ira divina; De opificio hominis ad Demetrianum; De phenice carmen

On parchment, II, 254, I* fols., 322×222 mm. Modern green leather binding. Written in humanistic book script (humanistica rotunda) by the scribe Sinibaldus C.100 The illuminated decoration of the table of contents on the verso of the leaf preceding the title page has the same type as Cats. 5, 7, 10, 19. Florentine white vine-stem illumination decorates the lower, upper, and inner margins of the title page (fol. 3r). It belongs to the so-called antico fondo estense and might have been purchased by Alfonso II d’Este from Nicolò Zen in Venice, like the manuscripts now in Modena that originate from the Corvina Library.

 

10. Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Cod. Lat. 386 (=α.H.3.12)101

Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita: De coelesti hierarchia; De ecclesiastica hierarchia; De divinis nominibus; De mystica theologia; Epistolae X. (all translated to Latin by Ambrogio Traversari);

Franciscus de Mayronis: In expositione librorum Dionisii de mistica theologia; De angelica hierarchia;

Tomas abbas Vercellensis (Thomas Gallus): In expositione librorum Dionisii de angelica hierarchia; Extractio seu commentum in librum beati Dionisii de ecclesiastica hierarchia; Continentia primi capituli de divinis nominibus; Commentum in librum beati Dionisii de mistica theologica; Extractiones epistolae Dionisii ad Titum.

On parchment, III, 238, II* fols., 323×215 mm. Modern, green leather binding. Written in humanistic book script by Petrus de Traiecto (fol. 1r–112r) and another, unidentified scribe (fol. 113r–238r).102 The illuminated decoration of the table of contents on the verso of the leaf preceding the title page has the same type as Cats. 5, 7, 9, 19. Florentine white vine-stem illumination decorates the lower, upper, and inner margins of the title page (fol. 3r). It belongs to the so-called antico fondo estense. For its hypothetic earlier provenance, see Cat. 10. Edith Hoffmann already noticed in a review published in 1925, that it contains the same coat of arms as several other manuscripts from the Corvina Library.103

 

11. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Class. Lat. 289104

Aristotle: Ethicorum ad Nicomachum libri X. (translated to Latin by John Argyropoulos, with dedication to Cosimo de’ Medici); Politicorum libri VIII; Oeconomicorum libri II (translated to Latin by Leonardo Bruni)

On parchment, 204 fols. Written in humanistic cursive by Bartolomeo Fonzio.105 Florentine white vine-stem illumination decorates the lower, upper, and inner margins of the title page. The lily of Handó’s coat of arms in the bas-de-page, which was painted in silver leaf, left its print on the verso of the front flyleaf.

 

12. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Class. Lat. 292106

Aristotle: Metaphysica (translated to Latin by Cardinal Bessarion)

On paper. Written in humanistic book script, extensively annotated in the margins. Its scribe is unidentified, but according to De la Mare, it was copied in Rome.107 The manuscript is almost completely undecorated, except for fol. 1r, where, in the center of the bas-de-page, there is a coat of arms in a medallion encircled by a laurel wreath. Although the middle of the coat of arms has been scraped out, traces of the golden crown are still visible, while the outline of the lily left its print on the verso of the front flyleaf. On the title page, there is also a five-line O-initial, painted in gold leaf, placed in a blue field, and filled with white vine-stem decoration. On a piece of paper glued onto the verso of the first flyleaf, there is a note by a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century hand, according to which someone (presumably the owner of the manuscript) lent four of his books: “Dialogi deorum / Valerius Probus / Philelphus de educatione liberorum / Libellus, q(uas)i panegyricus Imp(eratoris) Maxi(miliani) / apud D(omi)num Joa(n)ne(m) Jamboscium sunt, / quos h(abe)t a me accomodatos.” The note probably refers to Jan Zambocki (c. 1475–1529), secretary to Sigismund I, King of Poland.

 

13. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cod. Latin 2650108

Johannes Chrysostomus: Homiliae in Psalmum L, I et II;

Sanctus Gaudentius: Sermones

On parchment, 141 fols., 225×150 mm. Sixteenth century (?) leather binding. Written in humanistic book script by an unidentified scribe, but contains emendations by Bartolomeo Fonzio.109

 

14. Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, Cod. Lat. CXXXVI (124)110

Titus Livius: De secundo bello punico (Ab urbe condita, Decas III)

On parchment, I, 214 fols., 354×245 mm, text block: 236×137 mm. Original, blind stamped and gold-tooled Corvina leather binding produced in Buda in the late 1480s. Written in humanistic book script (humanistica rotunda) by Hubertus W. Edina Zsupán examined the manuscript and declared that, contrary to the opinion of Klára Csapodi-Gárdonyi, it does not contain emendations by János Vitéz.111

The table of contents preceding the title page is written in an illuminated architectural framework imitating a Renaissance tabernacle. This decoration is of the same type as Cat. 2. In the lower, upper, and inner margins of the title page, there is white vine-stem decoration enriched with putti and birds. A standing figure of a Roman general is depicted in the thirteen-line gold leaf “I” initial. The manuscript was presumably purchased by Nicolò Zen in 1560 from Istanbul, through the intermediary of his father; in 1580, it was purchased by Mario Bevilacqua for his library; in the late seventeenth century, it was in the possession of Scipione Maffei, who gave it to Francesco Muselli, canon of Verona. Finally, Muselli donated it to the Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona. The manuscript Cod. Lat. CXXXV of the library, which contains the Livy’s first Decade, was produced in Rome and not in Florence, and “met” Handó’s codices only in the collection of Bevilacqua.

15. Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, Cod. Lat. CXXXVII (125)112

Titus Livius: De bello macedonico (Ab urbe condita, Decas IV);

Lucius Florus: Epitome historiarum libri IV.

On parchment, 208 fols., 360×247 mm, text block: 236×138 mm. Original, blind stamped and gold-tooled Corvina leather binding produced in Buda in the late 1480s. Written in humanistic book script (humanistica rotunda) by Hubertus W.113 For its provenance, see Cat. 15. On fol. 2v, the monochrome, architectonic decoration of the title page forms a Renaissance tabernacle, which also contains the coat of arms of György Handó. Beltrami thought, primarily based on the putti holding the coat of arms, that the vine-stem decoration of the title page with its unusual colors and structure, must be the work of the same master who illuminated the Iustin manuscript in Besançon (Cat. 2.). I agree with her. According to Claudia Adami, the illuminator was the Florentine master known as Scipione, who also worked for Bisticci. In my opinion, based on his style, the illuminator belonged to the circle of Cosimo Rosselli.114 Below the original decoration of the bas-de-page, on the edge of the parchment, the small leaf garland, decorated with red and blue five-petal flowers, red and green ribbons, and colorful beads, can be attributed to the so-called First Heraldic Painter, an illuminator active in the Buda workshop at the end of the 1480s.

 

16. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 48115

Pseudo-Plinius: De viris illustribus;

C. Plinius Secundus: Epistolarum libri I–VII, IX;

Johannes Mansionarius: Vita duorum Pliniorum;

Pseudo-Plinius: Panegyricus Traiani;

Panegyrici XII.

On parchment, 191 fols., 330×224 mm. Original Florentine, blind-tooled leather binding (border decoration consists of interlaced rings, with two ostrich feathers emerging from every other ring). parchment. Written in humanistic cursive by Piero Cennini. The manuscript is dated in the colophon of the second text (fol. 92v): “Transcriptus Florentiae. IIIo. Idvs. Ian(uarias) Anno Salvtis Nostrae MCCCCLXVIII. Paulo. IIo. Romae. Pont. Max. τέλος” which means, taking into consideration the Florentine calendar, January 11, 1469. (The colophon is often dated, wrongly, to 1468.) The table of contents (fol. Iv) was written by Bartolomeo Fonzio.116 It lists all the works in the manuscript, but the short biography of Johannes Mansionarius had originally been left out and was added later, together with the folio number, to the end of the list by a contemporaneous but different hand. On the title page (fol. 1r), the lower, upper, and inner margins are adorned with white vine-stem decoration, while the historiated initial “P” includes a full-length author portrait in his study. The upper and inner margins of the incipit page of the Panegyricus Traiani are also decorated with white vine-stem illumination and a “B” initial (fol. 95r). Throughout the manuscript, there are several three-line initials in a squared field, but they were left unfinished: only their colored (pale red, blue, green) background and the gilding of the letters are completed. It is important to note that the illuminator consistently used a Greek capital “M” instead of the Latin version. In a medallion in the middle of the bas-de-page, encircled by a laurel wreath, there is the episcopal coat of arms of Orbán Nagylucsei, and the traces of György Handó’s coat of arms underneath. The manuscript ended up in Vienna from the Hofbibliothek in Salzburg, its previous shelf mark was: Salisb. 1c.

 

17. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 224117

Q. Valerius Catullus: Carmina;

Albius Tibullus: Carminum libri IV;

Sextus Propertius: Carminum libri IV.

On parchment, I, 171, III* fols., 240×165 mm. Written in humanistic book script attributed to Gabriel de Pistorio.118 The title page (fol. 1r) is adorned with Florentine white vine-stem decoration in the lower, upper, and inner margins and with a half-length author portrait in the initial “C.” The coat of arms of Matthias Corvinus in the middle of the bas-de-page was painted in the Buda scriptorium in the late 1480s. The codex was purchased by Sámuel Nádudvari in 1725 from the bequest of Michael II Apafi, Prince of Transylvania (1690–96).

18. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2384119

Plato: Phaedo; Gorgias; Axiochus; Apologia Socratis; Crito (all translated in Latin by Leonardo Bruni, except for the Axiochus, which was translated by Runiccio Aretino, also known as Rinuccio Castiglionfiorentino)

On parchment, 137 fols., 257×170 mm. Written in humanistic book script attributed to the so-called “Scribe of Venezia, Bibl. Marciana lat. Z.58,” who also copied a set of manuscripts containing the works of Saint Augustine for Cardinal Bessarion in the workshop of Vespasiano da Bisticci (cf. Cat. 20).120 The table of contents on fol. IIv was written in humanistic cursive in red ink, most probably by Bartolomeo Fonzio. Ernesto Berti noted that the codex was produced in Bisticci’s workshop, and its text was copied on the basis of a manuscript which belonged to Gianozzo Manetti (BAV, Pal. Lat. 974). According to Berti the copying mistakes were consistently corrected by a second hand. This emendator also collated the text of the Phaedo and the Gorgias with another manuscript (BML, Plut. 89.sup. 58) and corrected the mistakes of the archetype as well.121

 

19. Wormsley Estate, The Wormsley Library (formerly Holkham Hall, Ms. 440)122

Herodotus: Historiarum libri IX. (translated to Latin by Lorenzo Valla)

On parchment. Written in humanistic book script attributed to the so-called “Scribe of Bodmer Perotti.”123 The illuminated decoration of the table of contents on the verso of the leaf preceding the title page has the same type as Cats. 5, 7, 9, 10. Florentine white vine-stem decoration in the lower, upper, and inner margins of the title page (fol. 2r). The codex had belonged to the collection of the Holkham Hall library until 2001, when it was auctioned at Sotheby’s.

 

20. Private collection. (Formerly New York, Marston Collection, Ms. 54)124

Johannes Mansionarius: De duobus Pliniis;

Aurelius Victor: De viris illustribus;

C. Plinius Secundus: Epistolarum libri

On parchment, 148 fols. Written in humanistic book script attributed to the so-called “Scribe of Venezia, Bibl. Marciana lat. Z.58” cf. Cat. 19, table of contents and annotations by the hand of Bartolomeo Fonzio.125

Abbreviations

AGAD, ZDP

Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie, Zbiór dokumentów pergaminowych, Warsaw

ASFi

Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Florence

BAV

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City

BC

Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona

BEU

Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena

BL

The British Library, London

BML

Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence

BNCF

Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Florence

BnF

Bibliothèque national de France, Paris

BNM

Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice

BStB

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich

UL

ELTE University Library, Budapest

HAB

Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

NAH

National Archives of Hungary, Budapest

NSZL

National Széchényi Library, Budapest

ÖNB

Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna

PML

The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

 

Bibliography

Abel, Eugenius, ed. Analecta ad historiam renascentium in Hungaria litterarum spectantia. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia; Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1880.

Ábel, Eugen. “Die Landes-Bücherausstellung.” Ungarische Revue 2, no. 8–9 (1882): 640–69.

Ábel, Jenő. “Garázda Péter.” Egyetemes Philologiai Közlöny 4 (1880): 98–100.

Ábel, Jenő. “I. György kalocsai érsek” [I. György, archbishop of Kalocsa]. Egyetemes Philologiai Közlöny 4, no. 1 (1880): 32–37.

Abenstein, Christina. Die Basilius-Übersetzung des Georg von Trapezunt in ihrem historischen Kontext. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014.

A Hunyadiak címereslevelei 1447–1489 [The patents of arms of the Hunyadis 1447–1489]. Edited by Anton Avar. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára, 2018.

Balogh, Jolán. A művészet Mátyás király udvarában [Art in the court of King Matthias]. Vol. 1. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1966.

Bartoniek, Emma: “A Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Orsz. Széchényi Könyvtárának Bessarion-corvinájáról” [On the Bessarion manuscrtipt of the National Széchényi Library of the Hungarian National Museum]. Magyar Könyvszemle 61, no. 2 (1937): 118–25.

Beltrami, M. [Maria] Gabriella Mori. “Manoscritti corviniani alla Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona e codici di un ignoto umanista.” Atti e memorie della Accademia di Agricoltura, Scienze e Lettere di Verona, 6th ser., 39 (1988): 255–72.

Berkovits, Ilona. Illuminated Manuscripts from the library of Matthias Corvinus. Budapest: Corvina, 1964.

Berti, Ernesto. “Editoria e originali: Un codice della versione di Leonardo Bruni del Fedone di Platone nella bottega di Vespasiano da Bisticci.” In Gli antichi e i moderni, vol. 1. Studi in onore di Roberto Cardini, edited by Lucia Bertolini and Donatella Coppini, 73–122. Florence: Edizioni Polistampa, 2010.

Bessarione e l’Umanesimo. Edited by Gianfranco Fiaccordi with the assistance of Andrea Cuna, Andrea Gatti, and Saverio Ricci. Naples: Vivarium, 1994. Exhibition catalogue.

Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections. Edited by Jeffrey F. Hamburger, William P. Stoneman, Anne-Marie Eze, Lisa Fagin Davis, Nancy Netzer. Boston: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 2016. Exhibition catalogue

Bianca, Concetta. “Roma e l’Accademia Bessarionea.” In Da Bisanzio a Roma. Studi sul cardinale Bessarione, RR Inedita, Saggi, 19–41. Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento, 1999.

Bisticci, Vespasiano da. Le vite. Critical edition with introduction and commentary by Aulo Greco. Florence: Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, 1970.

Bisticci, Vespasiano da. The Vespasiano Memoirs: Lives of Illustrious Men of the XVth Century. Translated by William George and Emily Waters. Itroduction by Myron P. Gilmore. Toronto: University of Toronto Press and renaissance Society of America, 1997.

Boda, Miklós. “Handó György könyvtáráról egy pécsi emléktábla ürügyén” [On the library of György Handó, apropos of a memorial plaque in Pécs]. In Convivium Pajorin Klára 70. születésnapjára, edited by Enikő Békés, and Imre Tegyey, 25–34. Debrecen and Budapest, 2012.

Branca, Vittore. “I rapporti con Taddeo Ugoletti e la collaborazione per la libreria di Mattia Corvino.” In Poliziano e l’umanesimo della parola, 125–33. Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore, 1983.

C. Tóth, Norbert. Az esztergomi székeskáptalan a 15. században, I. rész. A kanonoki testület és az egyetemjárás [The cathedral chapter of Esztergom in the fifteenth century, part. 1. The canonical body and university studies]. Subsidia ad historiam medii aevi Hungariae inquirendam 7. Budapest: MTA BTK, 2015.

C. Tóth, Norbert. “Garázda Péter: Egy javadalomhalmozó egyházi mint politikai áldozat?” [Péter Garázda: A collector of benefices as a political victim?]. Magyar Könyvszemle 132, no. 1 (2016): 1–13.

C. Tóth, Norbert. Magyarország késő-középkori főpapi archontológiája: Érsekek, püspökök, illetve segédpüspökök, vikáriusaik és jövedelemkezelőik az 1440-es évektől 1526-ig [Late-medieval archontology of prelates in Hungary: Archbishops, bishops, auxiliary bishops, their vicars and income governors, from the 1440s to 1526]. A Győri Egyházmegyei Levéltár Kiadványai–Források, feldolgozások 27. Győr: Egyházmegyei Levéltár, 2017.

C. Tóth, Norbert, Richárd Horváth, Tibor Neumann, and Tamás Pálosfalvi. Magyarország világi archontológiája 1458–1526. Vol. 1, Főpapok és bárók [Secular archontology of Hungary 1458–1526. Vol. 1, Prelates and barons]. Magyar Történelmi Emlékek. Adattárak. Budapest: MTA BTK Történettudományi Intézet, 2016.

Caglioti, Francesco. “Fifteenth-Century Reliefs of Ancient Emperors and Empresses in Florence: Production and Collecting.” In Collecting Sculpture in Early Modern Europe. Studies in the History of Art 70, Symposium Papers XLVII, edited by Nicholas Penny and Eike D. Schmidt, 66–109. Washington, DC: The National Gallery of Art, 2008.

Caldelli, Elisabetta. Copisti a Roma nel Quattrocento. Scritture e libri del medioevo 4. Rome, Viella, 2006.

Caroti, Stefano, and Stefano Zamponi. Lo scrittoio di Bartolomeo Fonzio umanista fiorentino. Documenti sulle arti del libro 10. With a note by Emanuele Casamassima. Milan: Edizioni il Polifilo, 1974.

Castan, Auguste. Catalogue Général des Manuscrits des Bibliothèques Publiques de France. Vol. 32, Besançon, vol. 1. Paris: Librairie Plon, 1897.

Catalogue 144. London: Davis & Orioli, n. d.

Catalogue of the Choice Portion of the Extensible & Valuable Library of Count Louis Apponyi, Of Nagy Appony, Hungary. Auction catalogue: Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 10th of November, 1892. London: Dryden Press, J. Davy and Sons, 1892.

Coluccio Salutati e l’invenzione dell’Umanesimo. Edited by Teresa De Robertis, Giuliano Tanturli, Stefano Zamponi. Florence: Mandragora, 2008. Exhibition catalogue

Corti, Gino, and Federick Hartt. “New Documents Concerning Donatello, Luca della Robbia and Andrea della Robbia, Desiderio, Mino, Uccello, Pollaiuolo, Filippo Lippi, Baldovinetti and Others.” The Art Bulletin 44, no. 2 (1962): 155–67.

A Corvina könyvtár budai műhelye [The Buda Workshop of the Corvina Library]. Edited by Edina Zsupán. Budapest: Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, forthcoming.

Czaich, Á. Gilbert. “Regesták a római Dataria-levéltárnak Magyarországra vonatkozó bulláiból II. Pál és IV. Sixtus pápák idejéből, II” [Extracts from bulls related to Hungary from the papacy of Paul II and Sixtus IV, kept in the archive of Apostolic Datary in Rome]. Történelmi Tár, 3rd ser., 22, no. 2 (1899): 235–72.

Czagány, István. “Műemlékhelyreállításunk elveinek alakulása a budai, várnegyedi építkezésekben” [The development of our principles on how to restore monuments in the course of the construction works in the castle district in Buda]. Magyar Műemlékvédelem 3 (1961–62) [1966]: 37–66.

Czagány, István. “Az Országház utca 9. sz. műemléképület kutatásainak eredményei” [The results of research on the listed building of 9 Országház street]. Budapest Régiségei 29 (1992): 117–34.

Csapodi, Csaba. The Corvinian Library: History and Stock. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1973.

Csapodi, Csaba. “Janus Pannonius könyvei és pécsi könyvtára” [The books of Janus Pannonius and his library in Pécs]. In Janus Pannonius: Tanulmányok. Memoria Saeculorum Hungariae 2, edited by Tibor Kardos, and Sándor V. Kovács, 189–206. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1975.

Csapodi, Csaba, and Klára Csapodi-Gárdonyi. Bibliotheca Corviniana. 4th ed. Budapest: Helikon Kiadó, 1990.

Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Klára. Die Bibliothek des Johannes Vitéz. Studia humanitatis 6. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1984.

Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Klára. “Les manuscrits copiés par Petrus Cenninius: list revue et augmentée.” In Miscellanea codicologica F. Masai dicata MCMLXXIX, edited by Pierre Cockshaw, Monique-Cécile Garand, and Pierre Jodogne, 413–16. Ghent: E. Story–Scientia, 1979.

Csontosi, János. “A bécsi Udvari Könyvtár hazai vonatkozású kéziratai” [Manuscripts related to Hungary in the Hofbibliothek in Vienna]. Magyar Könyvszemle 9 (1884) [1886]: 157–308.

Daneloni, Alessandro. “Egy levéltári dokumentum Garázda Péterről” [An archival document about Péter Garázsda]. Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények 105, no. 3–4 (2001): 451–55.

Daneloni, Alessandro. “Sui rapporti fra Bartolomeo della Fonte, János Vitéz e Péter Garázda.” In L’eredità classica in Italia e Ungheria fra tardo Medioevo e primo Rinascimento, Atti dell’XI convegno italo-ungherese, Venezia, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 9–11 Novembre 1998, Media et Orientalis Europa 2, edited by Sante Graciotti and Amedeo Di Francesco, 293–309. Rome: Il Calamo, 2001.

Daneloni, Alessandro, ed. Bartholomaei Fontii Epistolarum Libri. Vol 1. Biblioteca Umanistica 7. Messina: Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi Umanistici, 2008.

Daneloni, Alessandro. “Bartolomeo Fonzio and Matthias Corvinus.” In Corvina Augusta: Die Bibliothek des Königs Matthias Corvinus in der Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Ex Bibliotheca Corviniana: Supplementum Corvinianum 3, edited by Edina Zsupán with the assistance of Christian Heitzmann, 153–60. Budapest: Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, 2014.

Daróczy, Zoltán. “Dóczyak és Nagylucseiek [The Dóczy and Nagylucsei families].” Turul 52 (1938): 82–84.

Deák, Farkas. “A Magyar Történelmi Társulat 1875. kirándulása, IV. 2. A bodoki könyvtárról” [The field trip of the Hungarian Historical Society in 1875, IV. 2. About the library in Bodok]. Századok 9, no. 10 (1875): 706–9.

De la Mare, Albinia C. “The Library of Francesco Sassetti (1421–90).” In Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance: Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, edited by Cecil H. Clough,160–201. New York: Manchester University Press and Alfred F. Zambelli, 1976.

De la Mare, Albinia C. “New research on Humanistic Scribes in Florence.” In Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento 1440–1525: Un primo censimento, vol 1. Inventari e Cataloghi Toscani 18, edited by Annarosa Garzelli, 393–600. Scandicci (Florence): Giunta Regionale Toscana and La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1985.

De la Mare, Albinia C. “Vespasiano da Bisticci e i copisti fiorentini di Federico.” In Federico di Montefeltro: Lo stato / le arti / la cultura. Vol. 3, La cultura. Biblioteca del Cinquecento 30, Atti del convegno, edited by Giorgio Cerboni Baiardi, Giorgio Chittolini, and Piero Floriani, 81–96. Rome: Bulzoni Editore, 1986.

De la Mare, Albinia C. “Vespasiano da Bisticci as Producer of Classical Manuscripts in Fifteenth-Century Florence.” In The History of the Book in the West: 400AD–1455, vol. 1, edited by Jane Roberts, and Pamela Robinson, 439–80. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010.

De Robertis, Teresa. “Aspetti dell’esperienza grafica del Quattrocento italiano attraverso i Manoscritti Datati d’Italia.” Aevum 82, no. 2 (2008): 505–22.

Devereux, James A., S. J. “The Textual History of Ficino’s De Amore.” Renaissance Quarterly 28, no. 2 (1975): 173–82.

“Die Bibliothek des Herrn Grafen von Apponyi in Wien.” Intelligenzblatt der österreichischen Literatur. (Appendix of Vaterländische Blätter für den österreichischen Kaiserstaat.) October 14, 1820.

Dogiel, Mathias. Codex Diplomaticus Regni Poloniae et Magni Ducatus Litvaniae, vol. 1. Vilnae: ex Typographia Regia et Reipublicae Collegii Scholarum, 1758.

Dressen, Angela. The Library of the Badia Fiesolana. Intellectual History and Education under the Medici (1462–1494). RICABIM–Repertorio di Inventari e Cataloghi di Biblioteche Medievali-Repertory of Inventories and Catalogues of Medieval Libraries, Biblioteche e Archivi 26, Texts and Studies 1. Florence: SISMEL–Edizioni del alluzzo, 2013.

Ekler, Péter. “Adalékok a korvinák történetéhez I: Trapezuntius-kódexek, Trapezuntius-korvinák” [Contributions to the history of corvinas I: Trapezuntius manuscripts, Trapezuntius corvinas]. Magyar Könyvszemle 123, no. 3 (2007): 265–77.

Ekler, Péter. “Findings on the Text of the Bessarion Corvina Codex (Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 438).” In Byzanz und das Abendland IV: Studia Byzantino-Occidentalia. Antiquitas, Byzantium, Renascentia 21; Bibliotheca Byzantina 4, edited by Erika Juhász, 143–48. Budapest: Eötvös József Collegium, 2016.

Ekler, Péter. “Further Data on the Corvina manuscript of Bessarion’s De ea parte evangelii… (Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 438, ff. 3–17).” In Byzanz und das Abendland V: Studia Byzantino-Occidentalia. Antiquitas, Byzantium, Renascentia 32, edited by Erika Juhász, 151–59. Budapest: Eötvös József Collegium, 2018.

Emich, Gusztáv. “Írott és nyomtatott könyvek a Budapesten 1876. évi május hóban rendezett Műipari- és Történelmi Emlékkiállításon” [Handwritten and printed books at the Exhibition of Applied Arts and Historical Objects, organized in May 1876 in Budapest]. Magyar Könyvszemle 1, no. 6 (1876): 261–72.

Fava, Domenico, and Mario Salmi. I manoscritti miniati della Biblioteca Estense di Modena. Vol. 2, I manoscritti miniati delle biblioteche italiane 2. Milan: Electa Editrice, 1973.

Fedeles, Tamás. “Pécsi kanonokok egyetemlátogatása a későközépkorban (1354–1526)” [The university studies of canons of Pécs in the Late Middle Ages (1354–1526)]. Magyar Egyháztörténeti Vázlatok 17, no. 1–2 (2005): 51–82.

Fedeles, Tamás. “Személyi összefonódások Pécsett, Mátyás és a Jagellók idején” [Personal networks in Pécs, during the reign of Matthias and the Jagiellonian kings]. In Püspökök, prépostok, kanonokok: Fejezetek Pécs középkori egyháztörténetéből. Capitulum 5, 125–50. Szeged: Szegedi Tudományegyetem, Történeti Intézet, 2010.

Fedeles, Tamás. Die personelle Zusammensetzung des Domkapitels zu Fünfkirchen im Spätmittelalter (1354–1526). Studia Hungarica 51. Regensburg: Verlag Ungarisches Institut, 2012.

Fejérpataky, László. Magyar czimeres emlékek [Hungarian heraldic documents]. Monumenta Hungariae Heraldica 1. Budapest: Magyar Heraldikai és Genealógiai Társaság, 1901.

Fógel, József. “A Corvina-könyvtár katalógusa” [The catalogue of the Corvina Library]. In Bibliotheca Corvina: Mátyás király budai könyvtára, edited by Albert Berzeviczy, Ferenc Kollányi, and Tibor Gerevich, 59–82. Budapest: Szent István Akadémia, 1927.

Fraknói, Vilmos. “Újabb adatok Vitéz János könyvtárának történetéhez” [New evidences for the history of János Vitéz’s library]. Magyar Könyvszemle 4, no. 1 (1879): 1–6.

Fraknói, Vilmos. Mátyás király levelei: Külügyi osztály. Vol. 1, 1458–1479 [The correspondence of King Matthias: Foreign affairs. Vol. 1, 1458–79]. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893.

Fraknói, Vilmos. “Mátyás király magyar diplomatái: I: Kosztolányi György” [Diplomats of King Matthias. I: György Kosztolányi]. Századok 32, no. 1 (1898): 1–14.

Fraknói, Vilmos. “Mátyás király magyar diplomatái: II: Handó György [Diplomats of King Matthias. II: György Handó]. Századok 32, no. 2 (1898): 97–112.

Gabrielli, Edith. Cosimo Rosselli: Catalogo ragionato. Archivi di Arte Antica. Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 2007.

Gamillscheg, Ernst, Brigitte Mersich, and Otto Mazal. Matthias Corvinus und die Bildung der Renaissance: Handschriften aus der Bibliothek und dem Umkreis des Matthias Corvinus aus dem Bestand der Öster-reichischen Nationalbibliothek. Vienna: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 1994. Exhibition catalogue.

Garin, Eugenio. “Una fonte ermetica poco nota: Contributi alla storia del pensiero umanistico.” La Rinascita 3, no. 12. (1940): 202–32.

Garzelli, Annarosa. “Le immagini, gli autori, i destinatari.” In Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento 1440–1525: Un primo censimento, 2 vols. Inventari e Cataloghi Toscani 18–19, edited by Annarosa Garzelli, vol. 1, 1–391. Scandicci (Florence): Giunta Regionale Toscana and La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1985.

Gentile, Sebastiano. “Per la storia del testo del Commentarium in Convivium di Marsilio Ficino.” Rinascimento, 2nd ser., 21 (1981): 3–27.

[Gulyás, Pál]. “Nagylucsei Orbán egy kéziratos-könyve a bécsi udvari könyvtárban” [A handwritten book of Orbán Nagylucsei in the Hofbibliothek in Vienna]. Magyar Könyvszemle, n. s., 22, no. 2 (1914): 192–93.

Hajnóczi, Gábor. “Bonfini Averulinus-fordítása és a budai Vitruvius-kézirat kérdése” [The Averulinus-translation by Bonfini and the problem of the Vitruvius manuscript from Buda]. In Vitruvius öröksége: Tanulmányok a “De architectura” utóéletéről a XV. és XVI. században, 77–81. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2002. [First published in Ars Hungarica 20, no. 2 (1992): 29–34.]

Hajnóczi, Gábor. “Vitruvius De Architectura című műve a budapesti Egyetemi Könyvtár Cod. lat. 32. kéziratában” [The De Architectura by Vitruvius in the manuscript Cod. lat. 32 of the University Library of Budapest]. In Vitruvius öröksége: Tanulmányok a “De architectura” utóéletéről a XV. és XVI. században, 82–91. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2002. [First published in Collectanea Tiburtiana: Tanulmányok Kalniczay Tibor tiszteletére, Adattár XVI–XVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez 10, edited by Géza Galavics, János Herner, and Bálint Keserű, 363–73. Szeged: József Attila Tudományegyetem, 1990.]

Hankins, James. Plato in the Italian Renaissance. 2 vols. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition XVII, 1–2. 2nd ed. Leiden and New York: E. J. Brill, 1991.

Haraszti Szabó, Péter and Borbála Kelényi. Magyarországi diákok francia, angol, itáliai és német egyetemeken a középkorban 1100–1526: Students from Hungary at the Universities of France, England, Italy and Germany in the Middle Ages 1100–1526. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Könyvtára és Levéltára, MTA ELTE Egyetemtörténeti Kutatócsoport, 2019.

Hassall, William Owen. “A Notable Private Collection: XIII. Florentine Illuminated Manuscripts at Holkham.” The Connoisseur 133 (1954): 168–72.

Henszlmann, Imre, and Zsigmond Bubics. A magyarországi árvízkárosultak javára Budapesten Gr. Károlyi Alajos palotájában 1876. évi májusban rendezett Műipari és Történelmi Emlék-kiállítás tárgyainak lajstroma [List of the objects displayed on the Exhibition of Applied Arts and Historical Objects, organized for the benefit of the flood victims, in May 1876 in Budapest, in the palace of Count Alajos Károlyi]. Budapest: Magyar Kir. Egyetemi Nyomda, 1876.

Hermann, Hermann Julius. Die Handschriften und Inkunabeln der italienischen Renaissance, III. Mittelitalien: Toskana, Umbrien, Rom. Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der illuminierten Handschriften in Österreich 6. Die illuminierten Handschriften und Inkunabeln der Nationalbibliothek in Wien. Leipzig: Verlag von Karl W. Hiersemann, 1932.

The History of Bookbinding 525–1950 A. D. Baltimore, MD: Trustees of the Walters
Art Museum, 1957. Exhibition Catalogue.

Hoffmann, Edith. “Nagylucsei Orbán könyvtárának maradványai” [Remnants of Orbán Nagylucsei’s library]. Magyar Bibliofil Szemle 1, no. 3–4 (1924): 166–69.

Hoffmann, Edith. “Review of La Bibliothèque du Roi Matthias Corvin, by André de Hevesy.” Magyar Könyvszemle, n. s., 31, no. 1–4 (1924): 136–41.

Hoffmann, Edith. “Review of La Biblioteca Estense nel suo sviluppo storico, con il catalogo della mostra permanente, by Domenico Fava.” Magyar Könyvszemle, n. s., 32, no. 1–4 (1925): 171–78.

Hoffmann, Edith. Régi magyar bibliofilek [Hungarian bibliophiles of the past]. Edited and annotated by Tünde Wehli. Budapest: MTA Művészettörténeti Kutatóintézet, 1992. (Original edition: Budapest: Magyar Bibliophil Társaság, 1929.)

Hoffmann, Edith. “Garázda Péter könyvtárának címeres darabja” [A book with coat of arms from the library of Péter Garázda]. Turul 47 (1933): 79.

Horvát, István. “II-dik Ulászló magyar Királynak 1502-dik évben a’ Thakaró Ág számára költ Óklevele” [The charter issued by Vladislaus II for the Thakaró family in 1502]. Tudományos Gyűjtemény 19, no. 4 (1835): 106–16.

Huszti, Giuseppe [József]. “La prima redazione del ‘Convito’ di Marsilio Ficino.” Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana 8 (1927): 68–71.

I luoghi della memoria scritta: Manoscritti, incunaboli, libri a stampa delle Biblioteche Statali Italiane. Edited by Guglielmo Cavallo. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato–Libreria dello Stato, 1994. Exhibition catalogue

Ipolyi, Arnold. Magyar műemlékek, vol. 1 [Hungarian monuments, vol. 1]. Archaeologiai Közlemények a hazai műemlékek ismeretének előmozdítására 1. Pest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1859.

Klaniczay, Tibor. “Egyetem Magyarországon Mátyás korában” [University in Hungary during the reign of Matthias]. In Stílus, nemzet és civilizáció, edited by Gábor Klaniczay and Péter Kőszeghy, 105–56. Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2001.

Koller, Josephus. Historia episcopatus Quinqueecclesiarum. Vol. 4. Bratislava: Sumptibus Joannis Michaelis Landerer, 1796.

Köblös, József. Az egyházi középréteg Mátyás és a Jagellók korában [The ecclesiastical middle class during the reign of Matthias and the Jagellonian kings]. Társadalom- és Művelődéstörténeti Tanulmányok 12. Budapest: MTA Történettudományi Intézete, 1994.

Köblös, József, Szilárd Süttő, and Katalin Szende. Magyar békeszerződések 1000–1526 [Hungarian peace treaties 1000–1526]. Pápa: Jókai Mór Városi Könyvtár, 2000.

Könyvkiállítási emlék: A “könyvkiállítási kalauz” 2-ik bővített kiadása [Souvenir of a book exhibition. The 2nd extended edition of the “guide to the book exhibition”]. Budapest: Országos Iparművészeti Múzeum, 1882.

Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Supplementum Ficinianum: Marsilii Ficini florentini philosophi platonici opuscula inedita et dispersa. 2 vols. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1937.

Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Iter Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries. Vol. 4, Alia Itinera II. Great Britain to Spain. London: The Warburg Institute; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989.

Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Iter Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries. Vol. 5, Altera itinera III and Italy III. London: The Warburg Institute; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990.

Labriola, Ada. “I miniatori fiorentini.” In Ornatissimo codice: La biblioteca di Federico da Montefeltro, edited by Marcella Peruzzi, with the assistance of Claudia Caldari and Lorenza Mochi Onori, 53–67. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; Milan: Skira, 2008.

Lacaita, James Philip. Catalogue of the Library at Chatsworth. Vol. 4. London: Chiswick Press, 1879.

Lauer, Philippe. Bibliothèque National: Catalogue Général des Manuscrits Latins. Vol. 2, Nos 1439–2692. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1940.

Lewicki, Anatol. Codex Epistolaris Saeculi Decimi Quinti. Vol. 3. (1392–1501) Monumenta Medii Aevi Historica Res Gestas Poloniae Illustrantia, 14. Cracow, 1894.

Lucentini, Paolo, ed. Liber Alcidi de immortalitate animae. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1984.

Madas, Edit. “La Bibliotheca Corviniana et les Corvina ‘authentiques’.” In Matthias Corvin, les bibliothèques princières et la genèse de l’état modern. De Bibliotheca Corviniana, Supplementum Corvinianum 2, edited by Jean-François Maillard, István Monok, and Donatella Coppini, 35–78. Budapest: Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, 2009.

“Magyar könyvtár külföldön” [A Hungarian library abroad]. Budapesti Hírlap, November 22, 1892. 5–6.

Marcel, Raymond. Marsile Ficin, Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon ou de l’Amour. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1956.

Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone: Mostra di manoscritti, stampe e documenti. Edited by Sebastiano Gentile, Sandra Niccoli, and Paolo Viti, with a foreword by Eugenio Garin. Florence: Casa Editrice Le Lettere, 1984. Exhibition catalogue.

Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Ermete Trismegisto: Marsilio Ficino and the Return of Hermes Trismegistus. Edited by Sebastiano Gentile, Carlos Gilly. Florence: Centro Di, 1999. Exhibition catalogue

Mattia Corvino e Firenze: Arte e Umanesimo alla corte del re di Ungheria. Edited by Péter Farbaky, Dániel Pócs, Magnolia Scudieri, Lia Brunori, Enikő Spekner, and András Végh. Florence: Giunti, 2013. Exhibition catalogue.

Matthias Corvinus, the King: Tradition and Renewal in the Hungarian Royal Court 1458–1490. Edited by Péter Farbaky, Enikő Spekner, Katalin Szende, and András Végh. Budapest: Budapesti Történeti Múzeum, 2008. Exhibition catalogue.

Mátyás király: Magyarország a reneszánsz hajnalán [King Matthias. Hungary at the dawn of the Renaissance]. Edited by Máté Bíbor. Budapest: ELTE Egyetemi Könyvtár, 2008. Exhibition catalogue.

Mátyus, Norbert. “Una lettera dimenticata di Vespasiano da Bisticci e due Giorgio: Handó e Policarpo.” StEFI – Studi di Erudizione e di Filologia Italiana, 5 (2016): 89–103.

Mikó, Árpád. “Bibliotheca Corvina – Bibliotheca Augusta.” In Pannonia Regia: Művészet a Dunántúlon, 1000–1051, edited by Árpád Mikó, and Imre Takács 402–6. Budapest: Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 1994.

Mikó, Árpád. “Imago historiae.” In Történelem – Kép: Szemelvények múlt és művészet kapcsolatából Magyarországon, edited by Árpád Mikó, and Katalin Sinkó, 34–47. Budapest: Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2000. Exhibition catalogue.

Mikó, Árpád. “Nagylucsei Orbán Psalteriuma” [The Psalter of Orbán Nagylucsei]. In Három kódex: Az Országos Széchényi Könyvtár millenniumi kiállítása, Libri de libris, edited by Orsolya Karsay, and Ferenc Földesi, 121–37. Budapest: Országos Széchényi Könyvtár–Osiris Kiadó, 2000. Exhibition catalogue.

Monfasani, John. George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of His Rhetoric and Logic. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 1. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976.

Monfasani, John. “Bessarion Latinus.” Rinascimento, 2nd ser, 21 (1981): 165–209.

Monfasani, John. Collectanea Trapezuntiana: Texts, Documents and Bibliographies of George of Trebizond. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies. Binghamton, NY: MRTS, 1984.

Nehring, Karl. “Quellen zur ungarischen Aussenpolitik in der zweiten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts II.” Levéltári Közlemények 47, no. 2 (1976): 247–68.

Nel segno del corvo: Libri e miniature della biblioteca di Mattia Corvino re d’Ungheria (1443–1490). Il giardino delle Esperidi 16. Edited by Paola Di Pietro Lombardi and Milena Ricci. Modena: Il Bulino edizioni d’arte, 2002. Exhibition catalogue.

Nolhac, Pierre de. La bibliothèque de Fulvio Orsini: Contributions a l’histoire des collections d’Italie et a l’étude de la Renaissance. Paris: F. Vieweg, 1887.

Pächt, Otto, and Jonathan J. G. Alexander: Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford. Vol. 2. Italian School. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.

Pade, Marianne. “Pomponio Leto e la lettura di Marziale nel Quattrocento.” In Pomponio Leto tra identità locale e cultura internazionale: RR Inedita, Saggi 48, Atti del Convegno internazionale, Teggiano, 3–5 ottobre 2008, edited by Anna Modigliani, Patricia J. Osmond, Marianne Pade, and Johann Ramminger, with the assistance of Angela Calocero and Elettra Camperlingo, 95–114. Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento, 2011.

Pálosfalvi, Tamás. “Vitézek és Garázdák: A szlavóniai humanisták származásának kérdéséhez” [Vitézes and Garázdas: Contributions to the problem of the origins of Slavonian humanists]. Turul 86, no. 1 (2013): 1–16.

Pannonia Regia: Művészet a Dunántúlon 1000–1541 [Pannonia Regia: Art in Transdanubia 1000–1541]. Edited by Árpád Mikó, and Imre Takács. Budapest: Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 1994. Exhibition catalogue.

Pócs, Dániel. A Didymus-corvina: Hatalmi reprezentáció Mátyás király udvarában [The Didymus corvina. Representation of power in the court of King Matthias]. Budapest: MTA BTK Művészettörténeti Intézet, 2012.

Pócs, Dániel. “Handó György könyvtára [The Library of György Handó].” Ars Hungarica 42, no. 4 (2016): 309–38.

“Prágai codexek fényképei” [Photos of manuscripts from Prague]. Magyar Könyvszemle 4, no. 4–5 (1879): 267–68.

Radocsay, Dénes. “Gotische Wappenbilder auf ungarischen Adelsbriefen.” Acta Historiae Artium 5, no. 1–2 (1958): 317–58.

Radocsay, Dénes. “Gotische Wappenbilder auf ungarischen Adelsbriefen II.” Acta Historiae Artium 10, no. 1–2 (1964): 57–68.

Raidel, Georg Martin. Commentatio critico-literaria de Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia, eiusque codicibus tam manu-scriptis quam typis expressis conscripta. Norimbergae: Typis et sumptibus Haeredium Felseckerianorum, 1737.

Ranner, Gottfried Chritoph. Catalogus Bibliothecae numerosae ab incluti nominis viro Hieronymo Guilielmo Ebnero, ab Eschenbach rel. olim conlectae, nunc Norimbergae a die II. mensis Augusti Ann. MDCCCXIII publicae Auctionis lege divendendae, vol. 1. Norimbergae: Typis Bielingianis, 1812

Rees, Valery. “Marsilio Ficino and the Rise of Philosophic Interests in Buda.” In Italy & Hungary: Humanism and Art in the Early Renaissance. Acts of an International Conference held at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, Villa i Tatti, edited by Péter Farbaky, and Louis A. Waldman, 127–48. Milan: Officina Libraria, 2011.

Rees, Valery. “Buda as a Center of Renaissance and Humanism.” In Medieval Buda in Context. Brill’s Companions to European History 10, edited by Balázs Nagy, Martyn Rady, Katalin Szende, and András Vadas, 472–93. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016.

Reumont, Alfredo. “Dei tre prelati ungheresi menzionati da Vespasiano da Bisticci.” Archivio Storico Italiano, 3rd ser., 20 (1874): 295–314.

Ritoókné Szalay, Ágnes. “Az öreg Leó” [The old Leo]. In ‘Nympha super ripam Danubii:’ Tanulmányok a XV–XVI. századi magyarországi művelődés köréből, 135–36. Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2002.

Ruysschaert, José. “De la bibliothèque du roi Matthias Corvin à celle du brugeois Olivier de Wree.” In Liber amicorum Herman Liebaers, edited by Frans Vanwijngaerden, Jean-Marie Duvosquel, Josette Mélard, and Lieve Viaene-Awouters, 121–29. Bruxelles: Amis de la Bibliothèque royale Albert Ier, 1984.

Saxl, Fritz. “The Classical Inscriptions in Renaissance Art and Politics.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 4, no. 1–2 (1940): 19–46.

Schönherr, Gyula. “Nagylucsei Orbán czimereslevele 1480-ból” [The grant of arms of Orbán Nagylucsei from 1480]. Turul 16 (1898): 66–68.

Schrauf, Károly. Magyarországi tanulók a bécsi egyetemen [Hungarian students at the university of Vienna]. Magyarországi tanulók külföldön 2. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1892.

Shailor, Barbara A. Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscipt Library, Yale University. Vol. 2, MSS 251–500. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 48. New York: Binghamton, 1987.

Soltész, Zoltánné. “Garázda Péter, Nagylucsei Orbán és Szatmári György ismeretlen könyvei” [The unknown books of Péter Garázda, Orbán Nagylucsei, and György Szatmári]. Művészettörténeti Értesítő 7, no. 2–3 (1958). 120–24.

Spagnolo, Antonio. I manoscritti della Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona. Edited by Silvia Marchi. Verona: Casa Editrice Mazziana, 1996.

A Star in the Raven’s Shadow: János Vitéz and the Beginnings of Humanism in Hungary. Edited by Ferenc Földesi. Budapest: National Széchényi Library, 2008. Exhibition catalogue.

Steinmann, Martin. Die Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Basel: Register zu den Abteilungen C I-C VI, D-F sowie zu weiteren mittelalterlichen Handschriften und Fragmenten. Basel: Universitätsbibliothek, 1998.

Tüskés, Anna. Magyarországi tanulók a bécsi egyetemen 1365 és 1526 között [Hungarian students at the university of Vienna between 1365 and 1526]. Magyarországi diákok a középkori egyetemeken 1. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Levéltára, 2008.

Ullman, Berthold L. The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati. Medioevo e Umanesimo 4. Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1963.

Ullman, Berthold L., and Philip A. Stadter. The Public Library of Renaissance Florence: Niccolò Niccoli, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Library of San Marco. Medioevo e Umanesimo 10. Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1972.

Unterkircher, Franz. Die datierten Handschriften der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek von 1451 bis 1500. Vol. 1. Katalog der datierten Handschriften in lateinischer Schrift in Österreich 3. Vienna, 1974.

V. Kovács, Sándor. “Garázda Péter.” Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények 61, no. 1–2 (1957): 48–62.

V. Kovács, Sándor. “Garázda Péter Lactantius-kódexe” [The Lactantius manuscript of Péter Garázda]. Művészettörténeti Értesítő 8, no. 2–3 (1959): 153

Vedere i Classici. L’illustrazione libraria dei testi antichi dall’età romana al tardo medioevo. Edited by Marco Buonocore. Rome: Fratelli Palombi Editore, 1996. Exhibition catalogue.

Végh, András. Buda város középkori helyrajza [The medieval topography of Buda]. Vol. 1. Monumenta Historica Budapestinensia 15. Budapest: Budapesti Történeti Múzeum, 2006.

Veress, Endre. Olasz egyetemeken járt magyarországi tanulók anyakönyve és iratai 1221–1864. [Matricula et acta Hungarorum in universitatibus Italiae studentium]. Monumenta Hungariae Italica 3. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1941.

Weinberger, Wilhelm. “Erhaltene Handschriften des Königs Matthias Corvinus und des graner Erzbischofs Johann Vitez.” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 46, no. (1929): 6–13.

The Wormsley Library: A Personal Selection by Sir Paul Getty, K.B.E. Edited by H. George Fletcher. 2nd edition, with a supplement of subsequent additions. London: Published for the Wormsley Library by Maggs Bros. in co-operation with the Pierpont Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2007.

Zaccaria, Raffaella. “Della Fonte, Bartolomeo.” In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, I–XCI, edited by Alberto M. Ghisalberti. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, s. v. “Della Fonte, Bartolomeo.”

[Zsihovics, Ferencz]. “Apponyi-könyvtár” [The Apponyi Library]. In Egyetemes Magyar Enyclopaedia, 3rd ed, edited by János Török, col. 580–82. Pest: Szent István Társulat, 1861.

Zsupán, Edina. “Bessarion immer noch in Buda? Zur Geburt der Bibliotheca Corvina.” In Augustinus Moravus Olomucensis: Proceedings of the International Symposium to Mark the 500th Anniversary of the death of Augustinus Moravus Olomucensis (1467–1513), edited by Péter Ekler, and Farkas Gábor Kiss, 113–38. Budapest: National Széchényi Library, 2015.

 

1 This paper is only a preliminary study on a topic which needs more detailed discussion. I plan to devote a monography to the history of Handó’s library, its connections with early humanistic libraries in Florence, Hungary and Central Europe, and the individual manuscripts. Taken into consideration, however, the importance of the subject and the amount of time that the writing of such a book demands, I decided to summarize and publish the most important results of my research here. To be more reader-friendly, all data and secondary literature on the individual codices are collected in the Catalogue. In the main text, manuscripts are only referred by catalogue numbers (Cats. 1–20). My research on the manuscripts of Handó’s library enjoyed the support of the János Bolyai Research Grant of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and my research travels were made possible by the Isabel and Alfred Bader Scholarship, which I received in 2014. This paper was originally published in Hungarian language in 2016, see Pócs, “Handó György könyvtára.” Further research was carried out within the framework of the Court culture and power representation in late medieval and early modern Hungary research project (NKFIH K-129362). I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Edina Zsupán (National Széchényi Library, Department of Manuscripts), who helped me draw conclusions on some important codicological questions. I am also thankful to Eszter Nagy (Research Centre for Humanities, Institute of Art History) for the detailed photos of the two manuscripts kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford (Cats. 11, 12).

2 Bisticci, Lives of Illustrious Men, 199–200. For the critical edition of the text, see Bisticci, Le vite, vol. 1, 340–41: “Istando a Roma meser Giorgio in queste pratiche, ebe lettere d’Ungheria, ch’egli andassi a Napoli a praticare col re Ferdinando il parentado della figliuola del re col re d’Ungheria. Fuvi molto onorato. Istato non molto tempo in questa pratica, colla sua prudentia et destreza d’ingegno condusse quello parentado. Conchiusolo, se ne venne alla via di Firenze, dove aveva comperati libri per più di tre mila fiorini, per fare una libreria a Cinque Chiese, a una sua propositura v’aveva. Avendo avuto dal re inanzi la cancellaria, et andando ogni cosa per le sue mani, fece quello hanno fatto pochi uomini della sua qualità. In prima, in quella chiesa dove egli era proposto, fece fare una degnissima capella, [...]. Et nella medesima chiesa ordinò una bellissima libreria, nella quale messe libri d’ogni facultà, et ragunovi volumi trecento o più, et ordinò il luogo dove avessino a stare. Ordinò sopra quella libreria uno sacerdote con buona provisione, che avessi cura de’ libri, et ogni dì l’aprissi et serassi.”

3 In the early 1460s, Cosimo de’ Medici commissioned Bisticci to provide the Badia Fiesolana with a new library. Employing several scribes, the cartolaio produced a large number of manuscripts within an exceptionally short time, but not even their number exceeded one hundred volumes, see De la Mare, “Vespasiano da Bisticci,” 190–92; Dressen, The Library of the Badia Fiesolana, 14–16.

4 Budapest, UL, Cod. Lat. 11; BAV, Vat. Lat. 1951.

5 De la Mare, “Library of Francesco Sassetti,” 186–88, cats. 66–70, 73, 78. Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 46–60, cats. 70, 85, 87, 94, 102, 116, 159. The manuscript Cod. lat. 9 of the Budapest University Library has been wrongly added to this group, most recently by Tünde Wehli in Mátyás király, 14–15, cat. 3. This manuscript, illuminated in the 1450s by Gioacchino de’ Gigantibus, had originally belonged to the library of Cardinal Francesco Condulmer, see Dániel Pócs in A Corvina könyvtár budai műhelye, cat. F12.

6 De la Mare, “Library of Francesco Sassetti,” 170. The purchase could take place because when the Medici bank was close to bankruptcy, Sassetti, being hard up financially, had to sell the most lavishly decorated and, thus, the most precious volumes of his library, which he had compiled with much care over the course of decades by investing a substantial amount of money. This coincided with a turn in the representation of the Buda court, which set as its primary goal the formation of a royal library consisting of luxury manuscripts.

7 Modena, BEU, Cod. Lat. 441 (=α.S.4.2); Florence, BML, Acquisti e Doni 233. His letters sent to Buda reveal his plans to have manuscripts copied for the Corvina Library in larger quantities, see Daneloni, Bartholomaei Fontii Epistolarum Libri, 78–85, ep. II, 11, 12, 13.

8 Wolfenbüttel, HAB, Cod. Guelf. 85.1. Aug. 2o. For a recent summary on Fonzio’s Hungarian connections, especially in 1488–89, see Daneloni, “Bartolomeo Fonzio.” For Ugoleto’s presence in Florence, see Branca, “I rapporti.”

9 Although the possessor of the coat of arms has not been identified yet, we can find, sporadically in the secondary literature, some—completely unfounded—guesses about its owner, which vary from Janus Pannonius to the “unknown” royal coat of arms of King Matthias Corvinus. According to Klára Csapodi-Gárdonyi, whose opinion led foreign research astray, the heraldic features of the coat of arms do not suggest a Hungarian owner. Her suggestion, however, was wrong, since the arrangement of the charges, the crown (a circlet with three leaves)–surmounted by a lily was not at all unknown in Late Medieval Hungary. Similar motifs appear for example on the coat of arms of Gergely T(h)akaró, titular bishop of Szörény, and his family. This coat of arms was granted by Vladislaus II, King of Hungary in 1502. The grant of arms unfortunately did not survive, but, based on an engraving, published in the nineteenth century, it must have been one of the highest quality Renaissance grants of arms illuminated in Buda, see Horvát, “II-dik Ulászló.” For Gergely Takaró, see C. Tóth, Magyarország késő-középkori főpapi archontológiája, 102.

10 The Florentine origins of the so-called First Heraldic Painter’s style were already correctly suggested by Edith Hoffmann. Hoffmann, Régi magyar bibliofilek, 82–84. For the list of the manuscripts from the Corvina Library with illuminations attributed to him, see Madas, “La Bibliotheca Corviniana,” 45.

11 Verona, BC, Cod. CXXXV (123). Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Die Bibliothek des Johannes Vitéz, 114, cat. 59; Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 61, cat. 162; Spagnolo, I manoscritti, 220; Claudia Adami in Nel segno del corvo, 199–201, cat. 23. Contrary to the opinion of Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, this codex has never belonged to the Corvina Library.

12 Eight-line initials in gold leaf, with white vine-stem decoration: fols. 22v, 47r, 74v, 97r, 118v, 136r, 153v, 170v, 192r. I am thankful for Edina Zsupán, whom I asked to compare the handwriting of the Livy manuscripts in Verona and Rome and whose expert opinion confirmed my attribution of the script to Hubertus.

13 Mikó, “Bibliotheca Corvina,” 404–6.

14 New York, PML, Ms M497. Fol. Iv: emblem of king Matthias Corvinus, fol. 1r: coat of arms and emblems of Matthias Corvinus, fol. 98r: coat of arms of Matthias Corvinus and Sassetti emblem, fols. 154r, 175r, 188r, 195r, 234r, 262r: coat of arms and emblem of Francesco Sassetti. The manuscript was copied by Hubertus in the mid- or late 1470s. De la Mare, “Library of Francesco Sassetti,” 186–87, cat. 70; De la Mare, “New research,” 505, cat. 32/27. Niccolò Niccoli’s letter Commentarium in peregrinatione Germaniae was written on fols. 269v–271r in a humanistic cursive script later probably by Sebastiano Salvini. De la Mare, “New research,” 489, cat. 9/14. Another manuscript from the Corvina Library, which was previously in the possession of Marino Tomacelli, presents a similar case (BAV, Vat. Lat. 1951): the coat of arms of the original owner is preserved on the incipit of the second book of Pliny’s Naturalis Historia (fol. 24r), while Matthias’s coat of arms was inserted in the bas-de-page of fol. 1r.

15 Apart from the Budapest manuscript, there are two groups of codices that contain—among others—the Latin translations of these three treatises and were produced under the personal supervision of Cardinal Bessarion. The first group of codices can be dated to 1467: one of these is an autograph copy (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Cod. R. 4 sup.), the other one contains a dated colophon (Florence, BML, Plut. 54. 2., fol. 290v: July 6, 1467) and the third one is decorated on its title page with the episcopal coat of arms of Marco Barbo, who became bishop in September 18, 1467 (BAV, Chig. B. IV. 47). The codices belonging to the second group were produced around 1470–2 and contain a dedicatory introduction to pope Paul II, but all remained in the possession of Cardinal Bessarion and later, together with his library, ended up in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. Their shelf marks: Cod. Lat. 133 (=1693), 134 (=1519), 135 (=1694), see Cento codici, 16–21, cat. 14–16. On their production, see Bianca, “Roma e l’Accademia Bessarionea,” 35; for BNM Cod. Lat. 133 (=1693), see Concetta Bianca in Bessarione e l’Umanesimo, 511–12, cat. 121; Susy Marcon in I luoghi della memoria, 455, cat. 65. One of the Marciana manuscripts (Cod. Lat. Z 135 [=1694]) bears the papal coat of arms of Paul II on its title page, but it has never reached him. On the creation of the texts and their Latin translations, see Monfasani, “Bessarion Latinus,” 168–76.

16 The structure and style of the white vine-stem decoration distinguishes it from the Florentine examples. It resembles the bianchi girari illuminations of Gioacchino de’ Gigantibus, the most prolific illuminator in Rome at the time (e.g. BAV. Vat. Lat. 1051, fol. 1r, Pope Paul II’s dedicatory copy of the De sanguine Christi by Francesco della Rovere – the later Pope Sixtus IV), while some characteristics of the illumination differ from his style. The putti’s figure and the colors of the ornamental details suggest that the illuminator of the Bessarion codex was most probably trained in Florence. The fact that he was active in Rome, however, is supported by another manuscript, the title page of which can be attributed to the same master with certainty (BAV, Vat. Lat. 3295, available online on http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.lat.3295, accessed on September 23, 2019.) The manuscript that contains Martial’s epigrams was produced in Rome in the circle of and probably even under the supervision of Pomponio Leto, shortly after 1470 (see Pade, “Pomponio Leto”). Nolhac identified the traces of a coat of arms (azure, three crescents gules) that had been scraped out from the middle of the bas-de-page of the title page with the coat of arms of the Vespi family. According to him, the same coat of arms appears in another manuscript: Paris, BnF, Cod. Ital. 1394, fol. 104r, see Nolhac, La bibliothèque de Fulvio Orsini, 199–200. The Martial manuscript now in the Vatican Library belonged to the book collection of Fulvio Orsini (1529–1600) in the sixteenth century.

17 De la Mare, “New research,” 456. (For bibliographical references to the scribes, see the Catalogue.) Eight of the manuscripts had already been identified in the catalogue of the illuminated manuscripts of the Bodleian Library by De la Mare, although she is not named there, Pächt and Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts, 30, cat. 313. These manuscripts are the following: Cats. 2, 3, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19. The Bodleian catalogue refers to the manuscript now in the NSZL (Cod. Lat. 418) by its old location and shelf mark (Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2391). The manuscript had been kept in Vienna until it was transferred to the library of the Hungarian National Museum in accordance with the bilateral agreement on the distribution of cultural assets between Austria and Hungary, which was signed in Venice in 1932. In the cases in which the original coat of arms has not been covered, one can clearly see that it was painted together with the illumination. Before De la Mare, Edith Hoffmann had already noticed that there are manuscripts with this coat of arms beyond the stock of the Corvina Library. Her observations, however, did not become part of the secondary literature of this group of manuscripts simply because she “hid” them in book reviews, see Hoffmann, Review of La Bibliothèque, 139; Hoffmann, Review of La Biblioteca, 177. In the latter, she calls attention to the manuscript containing the works of Pseudo-Dionysius kept in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena (Cat. 10).

18 The manuscript that contains George of Trebizond’s dedication to King Matthias Corvinus did not, in fact, belong to the Corvina Library, but it contains the author’s autograph emendations: Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Math. Fol. 24. The text of the dedication was published by Monfasani, Collectanea Trapezuntiana, 286–87, cf. Ekler, “Adalékok a korvinák történetéhez,” 273–74.

19 For a summary on manuscripts containing the works of George of Trebizond connected to Hungary, see Ekler, “Adalékok a korvinák történetéhez.”

20 Trebizond’s connections with Hungary between 1467 and 1470 were summarized by Monfasani, George of Trebizond, 194–98; Klaniczay, “Egyetem Magyarországon Mátyás korában,” 114; Abenstein, Die Basilius-Übersetzung, 177–245.

21 Beltrami, “Manoscritti corviniani.” For an evaluation of Bisticci’s oeuvre and on the characteristics of the manuscripts produced in his workshop, see De la Mare, “Vespasiano da Bisticci as Producer.” Beltrami’s study focuses on the Florentine manuscripts, so she touches upon the question of the Roman manuscripts only tangentially, and she does not mention the Bessarion manuscript in Budapest at all. Therefore, her interpretation that would refer to the whole group is somewhat narrow in its focus.

22 Beltrami, “Manoscritti corviniani,” 266–71.

23 In the second half of the 1460s, Cosimo Rosselli was demonstrably active as an illuminator. The best analogies of the putti, however, can be found on panel paintings attributed to him or his workshop that were produced in the same period, primarily on a picture of the Virgin with the Child and two Angels held in the collection of the Museo di San Marco in Florence (Inv. 1890. n. 489), see Gabrielli, Cosimo Rosselli, 126–27, cat. 17. For further examples, see ibid., 141, cat. 25; 157–60, cats. 38–40. For Rosselli’s and his workshop’s production in the field of illumination, see ibid., 34–35 and color plates II, IVa–b, 112–14, cats. 4–7 and 11–13. Among them, on the title page (fol. 1r, bas-de-page) of a Ptolemy manuscript (BML Plut. 30.3.), dated between 1466 and 1468, the putto holding the coat of arms were painted, in my opinion, by the same master who illuminated the Verona Livy. Angela Dillon Bussi attempted to attribute the illumination in the fourth Decade of the Verona Livy to Cosimo’s brother, Francesco Rosselli, who is a well-known figure from a later period (1478–80) of the Corvina Library’s history. She recognized the influence of the Buda workshop in the vivid colors of the title page, disregarding, however, the date of the manuscript, which is much earlier than the activity of the Buda workshop. See Dillon Bussi, “La miniatura per Mattia Corvino,” 109. (Dillon Bussi actually referred to the “terza decade,” which is obviously a lapse. What she describes as the “vivacità cromatica del miniatore rosselliano” can only be true of the third volume, and not the third Decade.)

24 Garzelli, “Le immagini,” vol. 2, 340, fig. 593. The so-called “Maestro delle Deche di Alfonso d’Aragona” was named after a lavishly decorated series of Livy’s work, commissioned by Alfonso I. (V.) of Aragon, King of Naples and produced in the workshop of Bisticci in the mid-1450s (1454–55), but eventually it has remained in Florence (Florence, BNCF, B.R. 34, 35, 36.), see Garzelli, “Le immagini,” vol. 1, 162–64; vol. 2, 340, fig. 592; Giovanna Lazzi in Vedere i Classici, 386–91, cats. 100–2. The documents related to the commission were published and interpreted by Hartt and Corti, “New Documents,” 160 and 162–63, docs. 11/1–6, 12, and 12/11. (The authors wrongly connected the documents with another set of Livy manuscripts which was preserved in the stock of the Aragonese Library.) For further information on the commission and the payment, see Caglioti, “Fifteenth-Century Reliefs,” 94, note 18 (January–April 1455).

25 Beltrami, “Manoscritti corviniani,” 269–71.

26 For a comparison of the production of the two illuminators in the 1470s and the attribution of their manuscripts once belonging to the Corvina Library, especially the one originating from the Francesco Sassetti’s library and attributed to Mariano del Buono, see Dillon Bussi, “La miniatura per Mattia Corvino,” 106–10.

27 The best example is the title page of a manuscript containing the treatises by Aelianus and Onosander (BAV, Urb. Lat. 881). It was copied partly by Sinibaldus (a scribe who also worked on the manuscripts with the crown-and-lily coat of arms), partly by Hubertus, see De la Mare, “New research,” 538, cat. 34A. On the style of illumination in the earliest manuscripts of Federico da Montefeltro’s Urbino library, produced in the late 1460s and early 1470s in the workshop of Bisticci and decorated with white vine-stem decoration, see Labriola, “I miniatori fiorentini,” 53–55. On the manuscripts produced for Federico da Montefeltro in the workshop of Bisticci, see De la Mare, “New research,” 572–73.

28 Budapest, UL, Cod. lat. 1., see Tünde Wehli in Mátyás király, 28–30, cat. 17, cf. De la Mare, “New research,” 544, cat. 78/2. The scribe (called “Scribe of Budapest University Lat. 1” after this very manuscript) was Bisticci’s most frequently employed scribe according to Albinia de la Mare’s research. Thus, he participated in Bisticci’s two largest projects, the production of manuscripts for the library of the Badia Fiesolana and Federico da Montefeltro, see De la Mare, “New research,” 544, cats. 78/3–4 (Fiesole), 10–11 (Urbino). Another manuscript also copied by this scribe contains the same note of production as the Budapest codex, see De la Mare, “New research,” 544, cat. 78/7.

29 The text of the note: “Vespasianus librarius florentinus / fieri fecit florentie.” Manuscripts produced in the workshop of Bisticci often contain a similar note, see De la Mare, “New research,” 565–67, App. III/I, cats. 1–16. It is important to remark that we cannot deduce from the presence or absence of such notes in the manuscripts certainly coming from the Bisticci’s workshop whether they were commissioned by someone or produced for the open market.

30 On the scribes, see De la Mare, “New research,” 432 and 537–38, cat. 68 (Sinibaldus), 459–60 and 504–5, cat. 32 (Hubertus), 463, 572 and 552–53, cat. 103. (“Scribe of Venezia, Bibl. Marciana lat. Z.58”). The other scribes who demonstrably worked on the manuscripts belonging to the group were also employed by Bisticci, Petrus de Traiecto, a scribe originating from Utrecht (Cat. 10), copied at least ten codices for the library of Federico da Montefeltro in the first half of the 1470s. De la Mare, “New research,” 462–63 and 532–33, cat. 63; De la Mare, “Vespasiano da Bisticci e i copisti,” 85.

31 Caroti and Zamponi, Lo scrittoio, 12–13; Zaccaria, “Della Fonte, Bartolomeo;” Daneloni, Bartholomaei Fontii Epistolarum Libri, 248. (Alessandro Daneloni’s commentary on Ep. I. 12, addressed to Garázda.)

32 De la Mare, “New research,” 446 and 488, cat. 7/28: BAV, Urb. Lat. 203. The manuscript with a simple white vine-stem decoration was produced in Bisticci’s workshop in the late 1460s for Federico da Montefeltro and contains the Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus by Calcidius.

33 On the relationship between Garázda and Fonzio, see Daneloni, “Sui rapporti,” with previous bibliography; for a summary of previous literature on Péter Garázda and his biography completed with new data, see C. Tóth, “Garázda Péter,” cf. C. Tóth, Az esztergomi székeskáptalan, 97. Thanks to research by Norbert C. Tóth, we have to completely reconsider our view of Garázda’s career after 1472. According to the new data, Garázda, who had belonged to the circle of Janus and was a relative of him, did not fall into disgrace after the Vitéz-conspiracy. On the contrary, in the following fifteen or more years, he received one ecclesiastical benefice after the other, though he never attained the episcopal rank.

34 Fraknói, Mátyás király levelei, 241–42, Nr. 177/1 (December 23, 1469). On the lions, see Ritoók-Szalay, “Az öreg Leó”; Pócs, A Didymus-corvina, 250–51.

35 Fonzio’s letters to Garázda: Daneloni, Bartholomaei Fontii Epistolarum Libri, 21–25, Ep. I. 12–15.

36 Munich, BStB, Clm 15738. Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius: Saturnaliorum libri VII, Commentarium in Somnium Scipionis. Colophon on fol. 293v: “Barptolemaeus fontius excripsit florentiae.” The manuscript was discovered and first described by Vilmos Fraknói, who also identified its original owner and scribe, see Fraknói, “Újabb adatok,” 3–4, cf. Caroti and Zamponi, Lo scrittoio di Bartolomeo Fonzio, 83–84, cat. 38; De la Mare, “New research,” 488, cat. 7/21; Hoffmann, Régi magyar bibliofilek, 105–6; Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Die Bibliothek des Johannes Vitéz, 118, cat. 67; Ferenc Földesi in Star in the Raven’s Shadow, 212, cat. 43. To my knowledge, the pen-and-ink illustrations have so far been ignored by scholars. The figure identified by a legend as “Microcosmus” on fol. 156v is close to the known drawings by Fonzio in the following manuscript: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Lat. Misc. d. 85 (Codex Ashmolensis), see Saxl, “Classical Inscriptions.” On the attribution of the latter as well as of further manuscripts illustrated by Fonzio (London, BL, Ms. Add. 15819. and BAV, Urb. Lat. 1358), see Garzelli, “Le immagini,” vol. 1, 90–92 and vol. 2, 343, 348–51, figs. 597, 603–7.

37 Giorgio Antonio Vespucci and Fonzio also participated in the copying of the Cicero manuscript decorated with the combined coat of arms of the Vespucci family and Garázda (Munich, BStB, Clm 15734). The heraldic motifs referring to the Vespucci family were first recognized by De la Mare, but her observation has escaped further attention, except for Alessandro Daneloni, see De la Mare, “New research,” 533, cat. 106/11. (“Scribe of former Yates Thompson Petrarch,” Giorgio Antonio and Nastagio Vespucci, Bartolomeo Fonzio); Daneloni, “Sui rapport,” 307. On the manuscript, see also Caroti and Zamponi, Lo scrittoio di Bartolomeo Fonzio, 129; Ferenc Földesi in Star in the Raven’s Shadow, 210, cat. 42. For Vitéz’s Livy manuscript (Decas IV, Munich, BStB, Clm 15733), see Edina Zsupán in Star in the Raven’s Shadow, 174–77, cat. 33; De la Mare, “New research,” 531, cat. 62/37 (scribe: Piero Strozzi) and 488, cat. 7 (annotations by Bartolomeo Fonzio).

38 Garázda’s Lactantius manuscript: Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 717. Hermann, Die Handschriften, 66–67, cat. 19. The codex contains the works by Lactantius in the same order (fols. 1r–254v), followed by a few lines from the Ovid’s Metamorphoses and concluded by the Carmen de Pascha by Venantius Fortunatus (fols. 254v–256r). The manuscript was first presented in Hungarian literature by Edith Hoffmann, who also identified the coat of arms of Garázda. Several years later, Erzsébet Soltész, who probably did not know about Hoffmann’s earlier publication, “rediscovered” the codex. Sándor V. Kovács called attention to Hoffmann’s publication, but he wrongly stated that the codex contains the complete Metamorphoses and Fasti, see Hoffmann, “Garázda Péter,” 79; Soltész, “Garázda Péter,” 120; V. Kovács, “Garázda Péter Lactantius-kódexe,” cf. V. Kovács “Garázda Péter,” 52; Hoffmann, Régi magyar bibliofilek, 257. For its scribe, see De la Mare, “New research,” 545, cat. 82/6. The Justin manuscript of Garázda: Prague, Národní knihovna České republiky, Cod. VIII. H. 72. The manuscript and the autograph possessor’s note on the back pastedown was first mentioned in the column called “vegyes közlemények” (miscellaneous news) of Magyar Könyvszemle. A year later, Jenő Ábel incorporated the data into his study on Péter Garázda, see “Prágai codexek fényképei,” 268 and Ábel, “Garázda Péter,” 99; cf. Hoffmann, Régi magyar bibliofilek, 106. This is the only one among the manuscripts of Garázda, the title page of which is adorned with floral ornamentation instead of white vine-stem decoration, so it must have been produced in the early 1470s. The place of the coat of arms, however, remained blank.

39 De la Mare, “New research,” 445 and 526–29, cats. 60/13, 15, 18, 22, 26, 29, 31, 32, 33. Klára Csapodi, recognizing that colophons signed by Cennini appear in many manuscripts that ended up in the Corvina Library, attempted to present him as the scribe of King Matthias Corvinus, and she attributed the script of several other Corvina manuscripts to him. These attributions were later rejected by De la Mare. Klára Csapodi, “Les manuscrits;” De la Mare, “New research,” 529 (“Rejected attributions”).

40 The autograph paper manuscript on the basis of which the modern critical edition of the text was prepared: BAV, Vat. Lat. 7705 (colophon, fol. 124v: “Anno 1469 mense Iulii Florentie”), see Kristeller, Supplementum Ficinianum, vol. 1, CXXIII–CXXIV; Marcel, Marsile Ficin, 12–48; Devereux, “Textual History,” 173–74. Sebastiano Gentile’s research has considerably modified our view on the creation of the Commentarium in Convivium: he discovered that in the introduction of an early manuscript version of the work (Florence, BML, Strozzi 98 [olim 629, olim 363.]), the list of the people who participated in the symposium held on Plato’s birthday, on November 7, 1467 was modified, as was the venue of the event: some of the words were scraped out and replaced with other names. Originally, Lorenzo de’ Medici did not attend the gathering, and the convivium did not take place in the Villa Medici at Careggi, but in the palace of Francesco Bandini in Florence, see Gentile, “Per la storia,” especially 14–16; Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, 60–61, cat. 46.

41 Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2472. The dedicatory letter (fol. 1r–v) dated August 5, 1469 by Ficino, in which he mentions Péter Garázda, too (“…vir doctus et utriusque nostrum familiaris…”), was published by Jenő Ábel from the Viennese manuscript, see Abel, Analecta, 203–4. (Cod. 2472 is the only manuscript source for the dedicatory letter.) The text was also published by Kristeller, Supplementum Ficinianum, vol. 1, 87–88; Marcel, Marsile Ficin, 265–66 (App. II); Rees, “Marsilio Ficino,” 131, note 9. The text of the Commentarium was most probably copied by Franciscus de Ugolinis presbyter de Colle Vallis Else (Francesco Ugolini di Colle Val d’Elsa), see De la Mare, “New research,” 495–96, cat. 22/7, while the handwriting of the dedication that is written on a parchment leaf inserted before the quire containing the incipit, and some of the corrections in the margins are attributed to Ficino himself. On the place of the present copy in the textual history of the Commentarium, see Huszti, “La prima redazione”; Kristeller, Supplementum Ficinianum, vol. 1, L–LI (Vi 1) and CXXIII–CXXV; Marcel, Marsile Ficin, 36–37; Devereux, “Textual History,” especially 178–79; Gentile, “Per la storia,” 9. The identification of Nagylucsei’s coat of arms on the frontispiece was published by Pál Gulyás after a note by Gyula Schönherr on the photocopy preserved in the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest, see Gulyás, “Nagylucsei Orbán.” A few years later, Edith Hoffmann, obviously unaware of Gulyás’s short notice, published the Nagylucsei provenance of the manuscript as her own discovery, see Hoffmann, “Nagylucsei Orbán könyvtárának maradványai,” 168, but later she has corrected herself, see Hoffmann, Régi magyar bibliofilek, 104, and note 247. As Hoffmann already noted (and I checked her observation by studying the original manuscript), there is no trace of a previous coat of arms under Nagylucsei’s: nothing was overpainted or scraped out. Thus, the middle of the bas-de-page had been left blank, see Hoffmann, “Nagylucsei Orbán könyvtárának maradványai,” 168; Hoffmann, Régi magyar bibliofilek, 104. On the manuscript, see also Csontosi, “A bécsi Udvari Könyvtár,” 182; Hermann, Die Handschriften, 56, cat. 51; Hoffmann, Régi magyar bibliofilek, 256; Csapodi, “Janus Pannonius,” 193–94; Ernst Gamillscheg in Gamillscheg, Mersich, and Mazal, Matthias Corvinus, 75–76, cat. 36; Mikó, “Nagylucsei Orbán Psalteriuma,” 134; Rees, “Buda as a Center,” 480. and note 19.

42 Nagylucsei’s well-known grant of arms is dated February 2, 1480 (NAH, DL 105029), see Schönherr, “Nagylucsei Orbán;” Fejérpataky, Magyar czímeres emlékek, 63–65; Géza Érszegi, Tünde Wehli, in Matthias Corvinus the King, 279–80, cat. 6.7; György Rácz in A Hunyadiak címereslevelei, 190–1, cat. XXXI. It is less known, however, that Orbán Nagylucsei and his brothers had already received a grant of arms with a similar, but not identical design of the coat of arms, see Daróczy, “Dóczyak és Nagylucseiek;” Radocsay, “Gotische Wappenbilder,” 358; Radocsay “Gotische Wappenbilder II,” 63; Balogh, A művészet Mátyás király udvarában, 320; most recently György Rácz in A Hunyadiak címereslevelei, 134–41, cat. XXI. This document was in the possession of Géza Majláth before 1945, but it was then lost. The grant of arms was issued in Buda on May 3, 1472, and according to its text published by Daróczy, it differed from the later coat of arms. On the earlier version, the tinctures of the field (parti per bend) were reversed: the upper half was azure, a lion passant argent, with a scorpion beneath its belly, while the lower half was gules, a star or. To my knowledge, this difference has not been noticed before. The scorpion, which is not directly beneath the lion but is in the lower half of the field, appears on the tombs of several members of the family in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, e.g. on the red marble tomb of Zsuzsanna Nagylucsei Dóczy in the parish church of Késmárk (Kežmarok, Slovakia) and on the epitaph of Zsigmond Nagylucsei Dóczy in the parish church of Garammindszent (Vieska, Slovakia, formerly in the Museum of Aranyosmarót [Zlaté Moravce, Slovakia]), on the latter, see Ipolyi, Magyar műemlékek, 89. unnumbered note.

43 Klára Csapodi-Gárdonyi has already suggested that there could have been another coat of arms in the manuscript before Nagylucsei’s (see Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Die Bibliothek, 127. cat. 80.: “Wappen: Orbán Nagylucsei, vorher Vitéz-Wappen [?]”), but based on the cited literature and their interpretation, she did not mean a previous coat of arms underneath Nagylucsei’s. As for the secondary literature to which she referred, in Wilhelm Weinberger’s 1929 study there is no mention of the manuscript (see Weinberger, “Erhaltene Handschriften,”), while in the catalogue of the manuscripts related to Hungary in the Royal Library of Vienna, published in 1884 by János Csontosi, he did not say, contrary to what Klára Csapodi-Gárdonyi states, that the manuscript once belonged to Vitéz. (According to Klára Csapodi, Csontosi confused the coats of arms of Nagylucsei and Vitéz.) Actually, Csontosi only described the content of the manuscript in detail. He did not speak of the coat of arms on the frontispiece at all. He did not even mention that there is any trace of ownership there. Regarding the provenance, all he stated, obviously wrongly, is that the codex originates from the library of János Zsámboki (Johannes Sambucus), see Csontosi, “A bécsi Udvari Könyvtár,” 166: “[Sambucus-codexe]” (“codex of Sambucus”). Interestingly, Edith Hoffmann not only ignored the previous coat of arms that is easily visible even to the naked eye, but she wrote exactly the opposite: “In the case of this work, apart from the misinterpreted coat of arms, nothing justifies the assumption that the manuscript had a previous owner before Nagylucsei.” See Hoffmann, Régi magyar bibliofilek, 130. (According to Hoffmann, Csontosi’s idea of the Sambucus provenance was inspired by his misinterpretation of Nagylucsei’s coat of arms as Janus’s.)

44 It is worth noting that in the colophon, according to the formula of dating, the scribe finished his work during the papacy of Paul II (1464–71). This remark, although not without precedent in Florentine manuscripts, may suggest that the codex was commissioned by a prelate.

45 For his ecclesiastical benefices, see Köblös, Az egyházi középréteg, 305–6. cat. 72, but the author does not mention his tenure as the provost of Pécs cathedral chapter; C. Tóth et al., Magyarország világi archonológiája, 40. (bishop of Győr: July 22, 1481–November 25, 1486), 35. (bishop of Eger: October 27, 1486–October 9, 1491). For his prebend of Pécs, see Fedeles, Die personelle Zusammensetzung, 394–95. cat. 269.

46 Another interesting relic of humanistic book culture in Pécs in this period is a codex written in humanist book script by Miklós Besenyői, cantor of Pécs cathedral chapter, in 1469: Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Cod. 438. The text of the colophon (fol. 58v): “Scriptus per me Nicolaum Stephani Angeli de Naghbesene cantorem et canonicum in ecclesia Quinqueecclesiensis, anno Domini Millesimo CCCCLXmo nono,” see I manoscritti datati 1997. cat. 25; De Robertis, “Aspetti dell’esperienza grafica,” 521–22. For further information on Miklós Besenyői, cantor of Pécs, see Fedeles, Die personelle Zusammensetzung, 322. cat. 45.

47 Boda, “Handó György könyvtáráról.”

48 Mátyus, “Una lettera dimenticata,” 98.

49 Alfred Reumont and Jenő Ábel considered the two Györgys identical, and when writing Handó’s biography, they confused him with information related to Kosztolányi. Both studies aimed to contextualize, primarily with the help of biographic data, what Bisticci wrote about Handó, see Reumont, “Dei tre prelati ungheresi,” 310–14. and Ábel, “I. György kalocsai érsek.” This confusion was finally clarified by Vilmos Fraknói on the basis of documentary evidence, see Fraknói, “Mátyás király magyar diplomatái. I,” and Fraknói, “Mátyás király magyar diplomatái. II.”

50 His date of birth can only be deduced from the date of his university studies in Vienna. Although for the present, no documentary evidence supports the supposition, he might have been related to Domokos Kálmáncsehi, provost of Fehérvár (1474–1495), who originated from the same locality and commissioned several luxury manuscripts around 1480. The fact that Kálmáncsehi acquired Handó’s house in Buda after his death, sometime between 1482 and 1484, may also suggest family ties between them, see Végh, Buda város középkori helyrajza, 238. cat. 3.5.8. (Árpád Mikó had already called attention to this, see Pannonia Regia 1994. 416. cat. IX–5.) Handó’s house was situated in the former Olasz (Italian, now Országház) street, at the northwest corner of the palace of the Ministry of Finance (built in the early twentieth century), to the south of today’s Fortuna köz. The plot figures as no. 163 on the map of Buda drawn by Joseph Haüy in 1687. Handó’s house had been wrongly identified with the restored gothic house of today’s Országház street 9, see Czagány, “Műemlékhelyreállításunk elveinek alakulása,” 37–38. and note 5. cf. Czagány, “Az Országház utca 9,” 130. note 2.

51 For his studies in Vienna, see Schrauf, Magyarországi tanulók, 98 (“Georgius Gerhardi de Chehy”), see more recently Tüskés, Magyarországi tanulók, 166. cat. 3026. For his studies in Ferrara, see Veress, Olasz egyetemeken járt magyarországi tanulók, 358–59; Haraszti Szabó and Kelényi, Magyarországi diákok, 306. cat. 829. For his studies, see also Fedeles, “Pécsi kanonokok,” 57. and note 48., with further bibliography. Bisticci mentions his studies in Padova and that he obtained a doctoral degree in Florence, but there is no documentary evidence in support of these claims.

52 Fedeles, Die personelle Zusammensetzung, 360–62. cat. 136.

53 Fraknói, Mátyás király levelei, 189–92. Nr. 127–31. According to Fraknói, the addressee of one of the documents issued in Buda on March 17, 1467 was Cardinal Juan de Carvajal, which seems likely, but there is nothing in the text he published that would confirm his assumption; Fraknói, “Mátyás király magyar diplomatái. II,” 104.

54 Handó had already served as vice chancellor alongside Vitéz in 1466–7, see C. Tóth et al., Magyarország világi archonológiája, 68; treasurer: April 20, 1476–August 29, 1478; see Ibid. 30.; principal and privy chancellor: August 10, 1478–March 21, 1480, Ibid. 69. In this period, it was quite common that, in contrast with the election of the archbishop of Esztergom, the person who became archbishop of Kalocsa had not been a bishop before. Precedents for this were the appointment of István Várdai (archbishop: 1456–70) and Gábor Matucsinai (1471–78), and this was the case with the successor to Handó, Péter Váradi (1480–1501), as well. Várdai and Váradi, like Handó, only reached the rank of provost (they both headed the cathedral chapter of Transylvania). Matucsinai was elevated to archbishop from an even lower rank: he had been cantor of the chapter of Bács and rector of Buda. By contrast, among the archbishops of Esztergom, Dénes Szécsi (1440–65), János Vitéz of Zredna (1465–72), Johann Beckensloer (1472–76/80), Tamás Bakócz (1497–1521), György Szatmári (1522–24) and László Szalkai (1524–26) were all bishops before being appointed primate of the Hungarian Church. Exceptions were exclusively the foreigners who obtained the dignity thanks to their dynastic connections: Cardinal John of Aragon (1480/84–85) and Ippolito d’Este (1486–97).

55 Here, Bisticci was only wrong about one thing: he called Handó bishop and not archbishop of Kalocsa. He surely did not mix up or forget his clients. He left out Matthias from his Vite not because, as is often supposed, he resented the king for the tragic fate of two of his clients, Vitéz and Janus, who were kind to him, but simply because Matthias was not his client. (Bisticci retired from book trade shortly before 1480.)

56 Handó travelled to Naples in the first months of 1469, see Fraknói, “Mátyás király magyar diplomatái. II,” 109.

57 Mátyus, “Una lettera dimenticata,” 120.

58 For a presentation and short interpretation of the document (Florence, ASFi, Notarile Antecosimiano, 5029, fol. 39r–v), see Daneloni, “Sui rapport,” 306. For the critical edition of the document, see Daneloni, “Egy levéltári dokumentum.”

59 The other source about Garázda’s benefice of cantor in the cathedral chapter of Pécs is dated 1478, see Fedeles, Die personelle Zusammensetzung, 347; C. Tóth, “Garázda Péter,” 5–6. and 11–12. According to C. Tóth, it was not primarily Handó, but Janus, the bishop, who helped Garázda acquire benefices in Pécs, as he had the right to appoint canons. From our point of view, however, it is not the question of jurisdiction that matters, but the observation that the context in which the humanist manuscripts were produced cannot be separated from the personal links between the owners, also reflected in their offices. For Garázda’s relatives and family ties, see most recently Pálosfalvi, “Vitézek és Garázdák,” 9–16.

60 Koller, Historia episcopatus, 411–13. (Rome, January 25, 1479). Pope Sixtus IV justified the exemption with the Turkish incursions, due to which the incomes of the archbishopric of Kalocsa and Bács fell (“et ab ipsis Turchis ipsarum Ecclesiarum possessiones pluries destructae et ville combuste fuerunt”). Therefore, in order to lead the diocese properly, Handó was allowed to keep the income of the prebend of Pécs if it did not exceed 170 golden florins a year. See also Czaich, Regeszták, 237–38.

61 C. Tóth, “Garázda Péter,” 6.

62 For this chronology, see Fedeles, “Személyi összefonódások,” 135.

63 Some of the codices listed in the Catalogue, whose Corvina-provenance cannot be proven at the moment, have been preserved in manuscript collections since the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries, where we can also find codices certainly originating from the Corvina Library (Besançon, formerly Holkham Hall, Modena: Cats. 2, 9, 10, 19.) It is the task of future provenance research to clarify if they are related in some way.

64 Budapest, NSZL, Cod. Lat. 369, see Mikó, “Nagylucsei Orbán Psalteriuma”; Árpád Mikó in Matthias Corvinus the King, 488–90, cat. 11.22.

65 On the charters: Nehring, “Quellen,” 248–49, cats. VIII. 1–8. The three charters belong to a group of documents consisting of nine original charters. Chronologically, the three charters form the second subgroup: Warsaw, AGAD, ZDP, 5580, 5582, 5583 (=NAH, DF 292995, 292996, 292997), February 21, 1474, Szepesófalu (Spišská Stará Ves, Slovakia). Among them, no. 5582 was written in humanistic book script. The other documents of this group: AGAD, ZDP, 5579 (=NAH, DF 292994), January 12, 1474, Eperjes (Prešov, Slovakia), “ad mandatum domini regis in consilio,” with the pendent seal of Matthias Corvinus; AGAD, ZDP, 5584 (=NAH, DF 292998), February 27, 1474, Bártfa (Bardejov, Slovakia), Matthias Corvinus ratifies the peace treaty, with his pendent seal; AGAD, ZDP, 5585 (=NAH, DF 292999), February 28, 1474, Nowe Miasto Korczyn (today: Nowy Korczyn, Poland), Casimir IV, king of Poland ratifies the peace treaty, with his pendent seal; AGAD, ZDP, 5586 (=DF 293000), April 24, 1474, Buda, the magnates of the country corroborate the peace treaty, charter with 25 pendent seals. For the context of the peace treaty of Szepesófalu and a Hungarian translation of the text (AGAD, ZDP, 5582 = NAH, DF 292996), see Köblös and Süttő, Szende, Magyar békeszerződések, 198–205, cat. 47 (translated by Katalin Szende). The original charter was described in the Hungarian edition as lost or missing despite the fact that Carl Nehring had already published its current location and shelf mark in 1976 (see above). For the edition of the texts of the charters, see Dogiel, Codex Diplomaticus, 69–75, cats. 26–28. (AGAD, ZDP, 5582, 5584); Lewicki, Codex Epistolaris, 184–89, cats. 160–62. (AGAD, ZDP, 5583, 5580). At the period when Maciej Dogiels’s book was published (1758) the charters were kept in the Wawel castle of Cracow, among the documents of the Archive of the Royal Chancellery (Archivum Cancellarii Regni), see Ibid., b2v-cr. This material had already been transferred to Moscow when Lewicki published the texts of the other charters.

66 The intitulation of the charter: “Nos Gabriel Alben(sis) Transsilvane, Osualdus Zagrabien(sis) eccl(aes)siarum ep(iscop)i, Emericus de Zapolya Comes perpetuus Scepusien(sis), Johannes Pangracij de Dengeleg al(ia)s wayuoda Transsy(lva)nus, generalis capitaneus exercituum regaliu(m), Georgius Quinqu(e)eccl(aes)ien(sis) prothonotarius ap(osto)licus et Gaspar sancti Martini de Scepusio eccl(aes)iarum prepositi.” Based on this, the charter was issued by Gabriele Rangoni, bishop of Transylvania (1472–76, see C. Tóth et al., Magyarország világi archonológiája, 37, cardinal from 1477); Osvát (Túz) of Szentlászló, bishop of Zagreb (1466–99, see C. Tóth et al., Magyarország világi archonológiája, 56); Imre Szapolyai, count of Szepes (i.e. comes perpetuus); János Pongrác of Dengeleg, former voivode of Transylvania (1462–65; 1467–72; 1475–76, see C. Tóth et al., Magyarország világi archonológiája, 85–86), general of the royal army; György Handó, provost of Pécs and apostolic (i.e. papal) protonotary; Gáspár Bak of Berend, provost of the Saint Martin collegiate church of Szepes (1464–93, see C. Tóth et al., Magyarország világi archonológiája, 63).

67 Steinmann, Die Handschriften, passim.

68 The typewritten catalogue of the Universitätsbibliothek of Basel contains a detailed description of the manuscript and the expert opinion of Albinia de la Mare, which she sent via mail.

69 On the scribe who was active in Rome, see: Caldelli, Copisti a Roma, 187. (BAV, Vat. Lat. 1868, dated colophon: October 21, 1468.) The text of the colophon in the Basel manuscript was published by Monfasani, George of Trebizond, 346 (Appendix 4.)

70 See note 18.

71 Castan, Catalogue Général, 524.

72 On the scribes, see De la Mare, “New research,” 519, cat. 53/1; 528–29, cat. 60; 488, cat. 7.

73 Hermann, Die Handschriften, cat. 21; Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 40, cat. 38; Dániel Pócs, in A Corvina könyvtár budai műhelye, cat. H5.

74 In the Hungarian literature, the manuscript always appeared under the authorship of “Chalcidius Altividus” or “Chalcidius,” see Fógel, “A Corvina-könyvtár katalógusa,” 63, cat. 39; Berkovits, Illuminated Manuscripts, 120, cat. 30; Csapodi, Corvinian Library, 178–79. cat. 164. As in the Hungarian literature, the author of the De immortalitate animae was passed down as Calcidius, it was only one more step to describe the manuscript as containing a different work, the commentaries on Plato’s Timaeus, which indeed was written by Calcidius, see Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 40, cat. 38. Marsilio Ficino owned and annotated a copy of Calcidius’ translation and commentary, see Hankins, Plato, vol. 2, 474.

75 Florence, BML, Strozzi 72, see Ullman, The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati, 168–69, cat. 52; Ullman and Stadter, The Public Library of Renaissance Florence, 201, Nr. 673; Lucentini, Liber Alcidi, xx, cat. 1; Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, 5–7, cat. 5; Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Ermete Trismegisto, 83–85, cat. 19; Sebastiano Gentile in Coluccio Salutati, 279–80, cat. 82. On the date and site of the creation of the text (Sicily, second half of the thirteenth century) and its sources, see the introduction by Paolo Lucentini to the critical edition: Lucentini, Liber Alcidi, especially lxxxix–cix, cf. Garin, “Una fonte ermetica.”

76 BAV, Urb. lat. 1188: produced for Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, after 1474, see Lucentini, Liber Alcidi, xxxi–xxxiii, cat. 3. Florence, BML Plut. 84. 24.: produced for Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici around 1490 and illuminated by Attavante. The codex contains both the commentaries on Plato’s Timaeus by Calcidius and the De immortalitate animae, see Lucentini, Liber Alcidi, xxv–xxx, cat. 2; Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, 7–8, cat. 6. Pesaro, Biblioteca Oliveriana, Cod. 606.: the text of the manuscript is a late fifteenth-century copy from the Medici codex, see Lucentini, Liber Alcidi, xxxiii–xxxv, cat. 4.

77 Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, 709, fol. 128r–131v, see Sebastiano Gentile in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, 15–17, cat. 13; Lucentini, Liber Alcidi, xxxix–xli; Sebastiano Gentile, in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Ermete Trismegisto, 95–98, cat. 25. Ficino quoted a passage from the Liber Alcidi in his short treatise De virtutibus moralibus written in 1457. The autograph copy in the Riccardiana manuscript is dated to the middle of the 1450s.

78 Bartoniek, “A Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum”; Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 42, cat. 50; Ferenc Földesi in Star in the Raven’s Shadow, 163, cat. 30; Dániel Pócs in Mattia Corvino, 108–9, cat. 23; Zsupán, “Bessarion,” 115–17; Dániel Pócs, in A Corvina könyvtár budai műhelye, cat. H6. On the philological and codicological problems of the manuscript, see most recently Ekler, “Findings” and Ekler, “Further Data.”

79 Caldelli, Copisti a Roma, 127. cat. 3.

80 See note 16.

81 Csapodi, Corvinian Library, 112–13, cat. 3. Previously considered (wrongly) as once belonging to the Corvina Library. On the codex, see most recently Ada Labriola in Beyond Words, 257–58, cat. 211.

82 History of Bookbinding, 87, cat. 195.

83 On the scribe, see De la Mare, “New research,” 505, cat. 32/20.

84 To my knowledge, the manuscript was first mentioned in a short, anonymous article about the most important manuscripts of the Apponyi Library, which were still in Vienna at that time: “Nebst mehreren Prachtausgaben und einigen Manuscripten z. B. den Taktiker Aelianus und Onosander, den Ptolomäus, alle 3 in lateinischer Übersetzung auf Pergament, mit Figuren, …,” see “Die Bibliothek des Herrn Grafen von Apponyi,” 1. For later mentions of the manuscript, see Zsihovics, “Apponyi-könyvtár,” col. 580–81; Deák, “A Magyar Történelmi Társulat,” 708.

85 On the 1876 exhibition: Henszlmann and Bubics, A magyarországi árvíkárosultak, 48: “Magyarországra vonatkozó kitünő könyvek, Gr. Apponyi Sándor t.” [Excellent books related to Hungary, property of Count Sándor Apponyi]. (In fact, there were items from both Apponyi libraries.) The manuscript does not figure as a separate item in the descriptive catalogue of the exhibition, but it is mentioned in an expert bibliophile report, see Emich, “Írott és nyomtatott könyvek,” 271. On the 1882 exhibition in the Palace of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, see Könyvkiállítási emlék, 169–70, cat. 5. Jenő Ábel, who gave an account of this exhibition, also mentioned this manuscript, which at the time was in the possession of Rudolf Apponyi, see Ábel, “Die Landes-Bücherausstellung,” 667, unnumbered note.

86 Catalogue of the Choice Portion, 2, cat. 9. “From the Library of King Matthias Corvini.” (sic!)

87 Hoffmann, Review of La Bibliothèque, 139. “Once there was a manuscript with the same coat of arms in the Apponyi Library.”

88 “Magyar könyvtár külföldön,” 5–6.

89 New York, New York Public Library, Ms. MA 97. The lavishly illuminated, in folio parchment manuscript had already belonged to the Nurenberg library of Hieronymus Wilhelm Ebner von Eschenbach (1673–1752) in 1737, when Gottfried Christoph Raidel published a detailed description of the codex and an endraved illustration representing the bas-de-page of the manuscript’s illuminated title page, see Raidel, Commentatio, 26–33. For the auction of the Ebner library, see Ranner, Catalogus, 44. cat. 381.

90 Lacaita, Catalogue, 329. On the flyleaf: “Given me by my friend William Bristow, Esq., anno 1740. Burlington.” I owe my gratitude to James Towe, the librarian of the Chatsworth collection, for providing me with accurate information about the codicological features of the manuscript. Shelf marks of the library’s manuscripts are not public.

91 De la Mare, “New research,” 456, note 276. De la Mare does not mention Fonzio’s emendations in this case, but Paul Oskar Kristeller does, see Kristeller, Iter Italicum, vol. 4, 13.

92 Hajnóczi, “Bonfini Averulinus-fordítása.”

93 Hajnóczi, “Vitruvius De Architectura.”

94 Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 58, cat. 146 and 400–1, plate CLVIII (front cover). The entire manuscript is now available online: http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Barb. lat.168

95 Ruysschaert, “De la bibliothèque.”

96 Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 48, cat. 83.

97 De la Mare, “New research,” 537, cat. 68/11.

98 Mikó, “Imago historiae,” 37–39.

99 Fava and Salmi, I manoscritti, 71, cat. 137bis; for a detailed description, see Paola Di Pietro Lombardi in Censimento dei manoscritti delle biblioteche italiane: https://manus.iccu.sbn.it/opac_SchedaScheda.php?ID=166331. (Last updated: May 19, 2010, last retrieved: September 26, 2019.)

100 De la Mare, “New research,” 537, cat. 68/16.

101 Fava and Salmi, I manoscritti, 70–71, cat. 137 and plate XXVI, fig. 2; for a detailed description, see Paola Di Pietro Lombardi in Censimento dei manoscritti delle biblioteche italiane: https://manus.iccu.sbn.it/opac_SchedaScheda.php?ID=166333. (Last updated: May 19, 2010, last retrieved: September 26, 2019.)

102 De la Mare, “New research,” 533, cat. 63/4.

103 Hoffmann, Review of La Biblioteca, 177. Edith Hoffmann’s observation was left unnoticed by later scholars of the subject, though she made an important remark regarding the possible provenance of the manuscript. She suggested that this codex might have been purchased by Alfonso II d’Este, duke of Ferrara, together with those codices originating from the Corvina Library that are still preserved at the Biblioteca Estense in Modena.

104 Pächt and Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts, 30, cat. 313 and plate XXVIII, fig. 313.

105 De la Mare, “New research,” 488, cat. 7/22.

106 Pächt and Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts, 86, cat. 852.

107 De la Mare, “New research,” 456, note 276.

108 Lauer, Bibliothèque National, 562–63.

109 De la Mare, “New research,” 456, note 276, and 488, cat. 7.

110 Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 61, cat. 163 and 454–55, plate CLXXXV; Spagnolo, I manoscritti, 220; Claudia Adami in Nel segno del corvo, 201–2, cat. 24, cf. note 24.

111 De la Mare, “New research,” 505, cat. 32/40. On the alleged emendations by Vitéz, see Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Die Bibliothek, 114–15. cat. 60. and fig. 45. To my request, Edina Zsupán thoroughly examined the microfilms of the Livy manuscripts in Verona and Rome.

112 Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 61, cat. 164 and 456–57, plate CLXXXVI; Spagnolo, I manoscritti, 220; Claudia Adami in Nel segno del corvo, 202–4, cat. 25.

113 De la Mare, “New research,” 505, cat. 32/41; Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Die Bibliothek des Johannes Vitéz, 115, cat. 61 and fig. 46.

114 On the attribution, see Beltrami, “Manoscritti corviniani,” 266; Claudia Adami in Nel segno del corvo, 203, cat. 25, cf. note 23.

115 Nagylucsei’s coat of arms was first identified by Pál Gulyás, see Gulyás, “Nagylucsei Orbán” and note 41 above, cf. Hoffmann, “Nagylucsei Orbán könyvtárának maradványai,” 167–68; Hoffmann, Régi magyar bibliofilek, 130; Hermann, Die Handschriften, 31–33, cat. 25; Unterkircher, Die datierten Handschriften, 18; Mikó, “Nagylucsei Orbán Psalteriuma,” 134.

116 On the scribe, see De la Mare, “New research,” 528, cat. 48/29.

117 Hermann, Die Handschriften, 57–58, cat. 52; Brigitte Mersich in Gamillscheg, Mersich, and Mazal, Matthias Corvinus, 63–64, cat. 24 and fig. 10; Milena Ricci in Nel segno del corvo, 291, cat. 58.

118 De la Mare, “New research,” 496, cat. 23/5.

119 Hermann, Die Handschriften, 27–28, cat. 20; Hankins, Plato, vol. 2, 735, cat. 379; Csapodi and Csapodi-Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 60, cat. 192; Ernst Gamillscheg in Gamillscheg, Mersich, and Mazal, Matthias Corvinus, 75. cat. 35 and fig. 8.

120 De la Mare, “New research,” 552, cat. 103/13.

121 Berti, “Editoria e originali,” 109–12. Berti is wrong when he attributes the enlargement of the group of manuscripts containing the crown-and-lily coat of arms with eight more codices to Gabriele Mori Beltrami (Berti, “Editoria e originali,” 109, note 39). Albinia de la Mare had already determined that the eight codices belong to this group, but unfortunately, this was not indicated by Beltrami in her study, see De la Mare, “New research,” passim. The identification of the collator (who might have been Bartolomeo Fonzio) needs further research.

122 Hassall, “A Notable Private Collection,” fig. IV and V.; The Wormsley Library, 290–91, cat.

123 De la Mare, “New research,” 542, cat. 75/7.

124 De la Mare, “New research,” 553, cat. 103/14 and 488, cat. 7; Catalogue 144, cat. 96; Kristeller, Iter Italicum, vol. 5, 285. Contrary to most of Marston’s manuscripts, it did not end up in the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, but, together with other manuscripts, he sold it in 1962 to Laurence Witten. The latter auctioned off a part of these manuscripts on December 10, 1962 at Sotheby’s, but this volume was not among the lots, see Shailor, Catalogue, XIX and XXI.

125 De la Mare, “New research,” 553, cat. 103/14; 488, cat. 7.

01_OSZK_Cod_lat_418_BW.tif

Figure 1. Liber Alcidi (Altividi) De immortalitate animae.
Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 418, fol. 1r

02_OSZK_438_BW.tif

Figure 2. Basilius Bessarion: De ea parte Evangelii ubi scribitur “Si eum volo manere, quid ad te?”; Epistola ad graecos; De sacramento Eucharistiae.
Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 438, fol. 3r

03_%c3%96NB_Plato_BW.jpg

Figure 3. Plato: Opera
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2384, fol. 1r

 

04_BL_Lansdowne.jpg

Figure 4. Horace, Juvenal and Persius: Carmina. London, The British Library, Lansdowne Ms. 836, fol. 3r

 

Figure 5. Plato: Opera
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2384, fol. 1r, detail: bas-de-page

04_%c3%96NB_Plato_det_BW.jpg
05_Verona_D_III.tif

Figure 6. Titus Livius: De secundo bello punico (Ab Urbe condita, Decas III).

Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, Cod. CXXXVI, fols. 2v–3r. © Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona

06_Verona_D_IV.tif

Figure 7. Titus Livius: De bello macedonico (Ab Urbe condita, Decas IV).

Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, Cod. CXXXVII, fols. 2v–3r. © Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona

Figure 8. Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius: Carmina

Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 224, fol. 1r

 

07_%c3%96NB_Catullus_BW.jpg
08_OSZK_438_det_BW.tif

Figure 10. Florentine blind tooled leather bindings. Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 418

10_OSZK_BW.tif
11_ex_Holkham_Herodotus.jpg

Figure 11. Herodotus: Historiarum libri IX

The Wormsley Library (formerly: Holkham Hall, Ms. 440)

Figure 12. Aristotle: Opera. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Class. 289, fol. 1r

© Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

10_Oxford_Aristoteles_Fonzio_BW.jpg
13_Bodleian_Aristoteles.jpg

Figure 13. Aristotle: Metaphysica

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Class. 292, fol. 1r. © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (Photo: Eszter Nagy)

Figure 15. Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita: Opera.

Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Cod. Lat. 386 (=α.H.3.12), fols. 2v–3r

© Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali e per il Turismo – Gallerie Estensi, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria

12_BEU_386_BW.tif

Figure 14. Aelianus Tacticus: De instruendis aciebus; Onosander: De optimo imperatore.

Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Ms. Richardson 16, fols. 1v–2r

© Houghton Library, Harvard University

11_Harvard_Aelianus.tif
13_BEU_384_BW.tif

Figure 16. L. Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius: Opera.

Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Cod. Lat. 384 (=α.M.8.18), fols. 2v–3r

© Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali e per il Turismo – Gallerie Estensi, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria

14_BESANCON_BW.tif

Figure 17. M. Junianus Justinus: Historiarum Philippicarum Trogi Pompei epitoma

Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, Cod. Lat. 832, fols. 1v-2r

15_BESANCON_VERONA_det_BW.tif

Figure 18. Details of Figs. 17. and 7.

16.tif

Figure 19. Details of Figs. 6, 15 and 12, 16.

17.tif

Figure 20. Theophrastus: Historia plantarum

Budapest, ELTE University Library, Cod. Lat. 1, fols. 6v–7r

21_%c3%96NB_Ficino_cod_2472.jpg

Figure 21. Marsilio Ficino: Commentarium in Convivium Platonis de amore

Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2472, fol. 2r

Figure 22. Pseudo-Plinius: De viris illustribus; C. Plinius Secundus: Epistolarum libri

Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 48, fol. 1r

18_%c3%96NB_48_BW.tif

Figure 23. Pseudo-Plinius: De viris illustribus; C. Plinius Secundus: Epistolarum libri
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 48, fol. 1r, detail: bas-de-page

19_%c3%96NB_48_bas_de_page_BW.tif
20_BW.jpg

Figure 24. Charter with six pendent seals (The peace treaty of Szepesófalu [Spišská Stará Ves, Slovakia], February 21, 1474).

Warsaw, Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych, Zbiór dokumentów pergaminowych, 5582

25_AGAP_5583.tif

2019_3_Molnár

pdf

Volume 8 Issue 3 CONTENTS

“Many laughed at the thought of this illustrious young man reading books:” About Miklós Báthory’s Library and His Cicero-Codex

Dávid Molnár
Eötvös Loránd University
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This paper pursues an anecdote of Galeotto Marzio about the erudite Miklós Báthory, bishop of Vác, who read Cicero’s Tusculan disputation while he was waiting with other noblemen for the royal diet in Rákosmező, and the mocking attitude of the Hungarian political elite toward any intellectual endeavor. The traces lead to the National Széchényi Library in Budapest which has in its holdings a manuscript of Cicero under Cod. lat. 150. This book might have been in the hands of Báthory at Rákosmező. The purpose of this paper is to confirm the scarcely known plans of Miklós Báthory, bishop of Vác, to found a Platonic school on the basis of what little remains of his library and, mainly, the notes of his Cicero codex. This information perfectly harmonizes with his well-known aspirations to found a Platonic school in Buda and later his gymnasium in Vác, which seems to have been permeated with a kind of Platonist spirituality. After a summary of the life of Miklós Báthory, the paper offers an outline of the remains of his once rich library and then finally an examination of the history of the Cicero codex and its marginalia.

Keywords: Galeotto Marzio, Miklós Báthory’s library, Cicero codex, Platonic school

Only a few historical monuments have become a tangible reality, an anecdote transformed into object. The National Széchényi Library’s Cicero-codex under Cod. lat. 150 is an embodiment of one such moment. Galeotto Marzio’s famous anecdote about Miklós Báthory and the prefiguration of Hungarian fallow land (“magyar ugar”) is frequently quoted from his book On the excellent, wise, facetious sayings and deeds of King Matthias:1

The Council of the Lords had gathered in Buda one time, but they could not yet go to the king. Among them was the Bishop of Vác, the nobleman Nicholas Báthori. Vác is twenty miles from Buda, but Buda can be reached from Vác on the river. This Bishop Nicholas was gifted with a most virtuous, generous, and honorable soul and body. He had been educated in Humanistic studies in Italy. Always increasing his knowledge with care and diligence, he did not avoid any labor, any vigilance, or impediment to acquire knowledge. Soon, his literary knowledge was esteemed with great admiration even by the most learned and clever philosophers. While the lords’ congregation was gathering, he did not want to waste his time with otiosity or babblings, so there was a book with him—if I remember well—Cicero’s work entitled Tusculan disputations. Many laughed at the thought of this illustrious young man reading books, which was unusual there, because for the Hungarians, it was a novelty to see a bishop reading in a place where they had been accustomed to discourse and conversation.

The purpose of this paper is to confirm the little-known plans of Miklós Báthory, bishop of Vác, to found a Platonic school on the basis of what little remains of his library and, mainly, the notes of his Cicero-codex (Cod. lat. 150). First, I summarize the life of Miklós Báthory. I then offer an outline of the remains of his once rich library. I then examine his Cicero-codex, which is now in the holdings of the National Széchényi Library.

The Life of Humanist Miklós Báthory

Miklós Báthory was born into the high-ranking, noble and powerful Báthory family from the branch of Ecsed on April 10, 1445.2 His father, István Báthory, became judge royal in 1435 and was killed in the Battle of Varna in 1444. Miklós’s illiterate brother, the military commander István Báthory, later was also judge royal from 1471 until his death and voivode of Transylvania from 1479 to 1493.3 According to Bonfini, the family might have been given its name after the ancient Pannonian king (or rather chieftain), Bato of the Breuci.4 Although no document has been found to prove it, Nicholas is said to have studied under Galeotto Marzio between 1464 and 1469 in Bologna and, later, under Marsilio Ficino, the father of the resurgent Platonism, in Florence.5 Báthory was already receiving church benefices in 1465, and he was elected Bishop of Szerém/Srijemska/Sremska before the autumn of 1468. Miklós was the royal chancellor February 1471 and August 1471. He was elected Bishop of Vác in 1474, an office which he held until his death.6 According to his contemporaries, he greatly appreciated philosophy, Humanist literary works and fine arts, and being highly educated in Latin and Greek.7 Furthermore, Renaissance architectural monuments are attached to his name in the bishop’s palace of Vác and Nógrád castle.8 Sources also suggest that he often held musical symposiums in his palace.9 Finally, he was honored as a patron of Humanism and a founder of schools. Surviving letters show that he attempted to found a sort of “Platonic school” and tried several times to tempt Marsilio Ficino (or one of his pupils) to teach in Buda in the 1480s, but his efforts failed.10 Following the death of King Matthias, he sided with Vladislaus II against Matthias’s son John Corvinus. In Vác, Báthory succeeded in establishing a school, a gymnasium publicum, which operated between 1497 and 1503. We know the name of its two Italian teachers: one of them was Francesco Pescennio Negro and the other was a certain Barnardino Utinense, who taught in omni artium facultate (“in every Arts faculty”).11 The last information on Báthory is from February 23, 1506. He probably died that year.12

The Remains of Báthory’s Library

Fortunately, although his Humanist writings and his library have been lost, some of Báthory’s books can be positively identified. This is a very poor reconstruction of his once rich library, the librarian of which, according to a recent hypothesis, might have been Francesco Bandini, the Florentine ambassador to Buda.13 In total, four or maybe five of his books can be identified:

1. A codex of Cicero’s Tusculanae disputationes. (See below in more detail).

2. The Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna has in its holdings a manuscript (Cod. 872) which was produced in the third quarter of the fifteenth century and can be related to Miklós Báthory. It contains Hilary of Poitiers’s (Hilarius Pictaviensis) work against the Arians with the title De synodis contra omnes haereses (On the synod against all heresies), but the title page of the manuscript has been torn out. In the 1920s, Edit Hoffmann had already noticed an almost imperceptible figure on the verso of the clean flyleaf. It is the inversed trace of the original coat-of-arms which was once painted on the title page. The outline of this is very vague, but one can discern the shape of an elongated triangle. Hoffmann was sure that this triangle is one of the three wolf’s or dragon’s teeth from Báthory’s coat-of-arms. However, some decades later, Soltész did mention only György Szatmári, Bishop of Pécs, in relation to the manuscript, but not Miklós Báthory. And finally some years ago, Marianne Rozsondai, referring to Soltész’s article, refuted the possibility that the Bishop of Vác had possessed the codex. In 1932, without any significant evidence in support of his contention, Julius Herrmann suggested that the first possessor of the manuscript was the poet Janus Pannonius, Bishop of Pécs. However, originally the manuscript of Hilarius was most likely in Báthory’s library before it was put in the possession of Szatmári some time after the death of Báthory in 1506. According to the note on the inner side of the cover, Szatmári gave the codex to Johannes Gremper, a friend and secretary of Johannes Cuspinianus, in Kassa/Košice in 1518 (“Is liber datus est mihi a Georgio Quinqueecclesiensi episcopo in urbe sua Castoine [sic! probably Cassovia?] anno 1518”). The next possessor was Cuspinianus after 1519, then Johannes Faber, Bishop of Vienna, after 1529 (both acquired several Corvinas from Buda).14

3. Báthory’s next known book is an incunabulum which is kept now in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Ráth F 1493): Iamblichus’s De mysteriis Aegyptiorum cum aliis aliorum Neoplatonicorum tractatibus (On the mysteries of Egyptians), which was published by Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1497. The book consists of another 13, mostly Platonist works translated or written by Marsilio Ficino and numerous notes in the margins: Ficino’s De voluptate, an excerpt of Proclus’s Commentaria in Alcibiadem Platonis primum: De anima et daemone and De sacrificio et magia, Alcinous’s De doctrina Platonis, Speusippus’s De Platonis definitionibus, Porphyry’s De occasionibus and De abstinentia, Synesius’s De somniis, Michael Psellos’s De daemonibus, Priscian of Lydia’s Theophrastum de intellectu et phantasia, Xenocrates’s De morte, and Pythagoras’s Aurea verba and Symbola. Rozsondai was the first to call attention to the fact that the notes in this book are identical with several notes found in the aforementioned Cicero-codex. One of the notes ([a5v]) is especially interesting because it may indicate another possible book from Báthory’s library: “hoc idem Plotinus sentit” (“Plotinus thinks the same”). Under this note, there is the same image of a manicule as in the Cicero manuscript. Supposedly, they are from Báthory’s hand. Furthermore, the note clearly refers to the beginning of Plotinus’s Enneads (from 1.1.1 until 1.1.6).15

Referring to Plotinus in the Iamblichus volume

4. However, we know with all certainty of a fourth book from his library: Marsilio Ficino’s Commentaria in Platonem, which was published in Florence in 1496. Now his copy is kept in Keble College, Oxford (Hatchett Jackson 85). This edition consists of Ficino’s commentaries on Plato’s works, but it omits his translation of the dialogues. There are no notes in this Oxford copy, but there are two telltale clues in the book. The first is the blind-stamped leather binding, which is from the same workshop of Buda as his aforementioned copy of Iamblichus. The second is a letter by Battista Guarino to the “Bishop of Vác Báthory” dated February 20, 1499 (which might mean February 1500), which is stuck in the inner side of the front cover. Thus, it was obviously in the possession of Miklós Báthory at some point.16

Possible Books of His Library

Based on the aforementioned note referring to Plotinus, Báthory might have read the Enneads, which he may have read in the 1492 Florentine first edition translated by Ficino. He may have had or at least have read one of the earlier manuscripts of it. According to Ficino’s letter to King Matthias dated February 1489 (or according to the Florentine calendar, February 1490), the Platonist master sent his translation of Plotinus, including his half-finished commentaries, to Buda, supposedly to the Corvinian Library. It is more than probable that Báthory knew, copied, or acquired this manuscript after the death of the king. Whatever the case, this copy of Plotinus has been lost now.

What other books might Báthory have had? There is a manuscript of Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria (On the art of building) in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena (Cod. Lat. 419) which was once part of the Corvinian collection in Buda. Although King Matthias’s coat-of-arms is painted on the first page, Báthory’s coat-of-arms also appears on f. 209v. However, the bishop’s mitre is again missing, so it had to be in Báthory’s possession before 1468, and eventually he gave it as a present to the king. This conclusion drawn in the secondary literature according to which this codex was prepared between 1485 and 1490.17 This manuscript may have been in the possession of another, later Báthory.

It can be safely assumed that the works dedicated to Miklós Báthory were in his possession. The most important of these is Ficino’s short treatise, the title of which was originally Secunda clavis Platonicae sapientiae (Second Key of Platonic Wisdom). In the form of a letter, this work must have arrived in Hungary in the summer of 1479. Later, it was placed in Ficino’s book of letters, which was published in Venice in 1495. It is almost certain that Báthory bought this 1495 edition, because Ficino’s two other letters to Báthory are also included in the volume. In addition, this short work seems like a schoolbook which briefly summarizes the basic concepts of Platonic ontology.18 Because Báthory had Ficino’s commentaries on Plato, he also must have had the 1484 or 1491 edition of Plato’s Opera omnia, translated by Ficino. Instead of going himself, Ficino wanted to send his cousin Sebastiano Salvini (the Florentine master called him his alterego) to teach Platonic philosophy in Buda. Salvini also dedicated his two works to the Bishop of Vác: De sacramento and Rabbi Samuel Iudaeus contra Iudaeorum proterviam inanemque in dies spem.19 The poet Angelus Callimachus Siculus wrote a panegyrical elegy to Báthory, who rewarded him with gold.20 After all, he must have had biblical and liturgical works as well.

The following is a summary of the known and supposed works from Báthory’s library:

 

Work

Edition

Library

1

Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes

manuscript, Florence, ca. 1450–1468

Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 150

2

Hilarius Pictaviensis, De synodis contra omnes haereses

manuscript, Florence, ca. 1450–1475

Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 872

3

Marsilio Ficino, Commentaria in Platonem

Florence: Lorenzo di Alopa, 1496

Oxford, Keble College, Hatchett Jackson 85

4

Iamblichus, De mysteriis Aegyptiorum: cum aliis aliorum Neoplatonicorum tractatibus, tr. by Ficinus.

a Ficino, De voluptate

b Proclus, Commentaria in Alcibiadem Platonis primum: De anima et daemone (excerpt)

c Proclus, De sacrificio et magia

d Alcinous, De doctrina Platonis

e Speusippus, De Platonis definitionibus

f Porphyry, De occasionibus

g Porphyry, De abstinentia

h Synesius, De somniis

i Michael Psellos, De daemonibus

j Priscian of Lydia, Theophrastum de intellectu et phantasia

k Xenocrates, De morte

l Pythagoras, Aurea verba

m Pythagoras, Symbola

Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1497

Budapest, Library of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Ráth F 1493

(5)?

? Leon Battista Alberti, De re aedificatoria

manuscript, Florence (Buda?), 1485–1490

Modena, Biblioteca Estense, Cod. Lat. 419

(6)

Sebastiano Salvini, Rabbi Samuel Iudaeus Contra Iudaeorum proterviam inanemque in dies spem

manuscript, after October 1477

?

(7)

Sebastiano Salvini, De sacramento

manuscript, October 1477

?

(8)

Angelus Callimachus Siculus’s poem (inc. Ordiar unde prius, claudent ubi carmina finem?)

manuscript, ca. 1483

?

(9)

Plato, opera omnia, tr. by Ficinus

Florence: Lorenzo de Alopa or Laurentius Venetus, 1484–1485

?

(10)

Plotinus, Opera, tr. by Ficinus

Florence: Antonio di Bartolommeo Miscomini, 1492

?

(11)

Epistole Marsilii Ficini Florentini

Venice: Matteo Capcasa, 1495

?

 

The National Széchényi Library’s Tusculan Disputations (Cod. Lat. 150)

The most interesting volume is the aforementioned manuscript of Cicero, which is the most richly illuminated as well. Galeotto Marzio writes that “if he remembers well,” the codex was in Báthory’s hands while he was waiting with other noblemen for the royal diet in Rákosmező. By that time, he was already serving as Bishop of Vác, so this event must have taken place after April 1474. This famous reading could have been in April 1475, because the king had called together the diet on April 24.

According to Csaba Csapodi,21 the codex was written in Florence in the second half of the fifteenth century, so it had to have been copied between 1450 and April of 1475. However, the period of Báthory’s acquisition can be further narrowed down to between 1464 and autumn of 1468 due to the time of his studies in Bologna and Florence and his appointment as bishop, when he might have easily acquired the manuscript in Italy. This assumption is strengthened by the first edition of the “Tusculan Disputations,” which was printed in Rome in April 1469 (GW 6888). Báthory might have encountered this work of Cicero in Italy, and as the known volumes of Báthory’s collection prove, he did not look down on printed books. He might have wanted to acquire the “Tusculan Disputations,” but he could not have known that it would be printed in 1469, so he might have bought the supposedly more expensive manuscript known today as Cod. lat. 150 during his studies in Italy, before the autumn of 1468. This accuracy of this dating is also strengthened by the depiction of Báthory’s coat-of-arms in the manuscript: it does not contain his bishop’s mitre. Sources give no indication of what might have happened to the book after Báthory’s death. The next trace is an inscription at the beginning of the codex: Patrum Trinitariorum Conventus B.[eatae] V.[irginis] M.[ariae] Cellensis Anno 1776, or “the Blessed Virgin Mary’s convent of the Trinitarian fathers in Kiscell in 1776.” The convent was part of the Vienna Province. Perhaps the manuscript was kept in a Jesuit library, and after the suppression of the Jesuit Order in 1773, perhaps it was placed in the Trinitarian convent. In a rescript of March 17, 1783, Joseph II dissolved the convent of Kiscell and its library to establish a military barrack. By March 1784 at the latest, the codex was no longer in the order’s house. Although a catalogue listing 800 books has survived, which was written by a committee of library liquidation, there is no trace of the Cicero manuscript on the list.22 An interesting part of the story is that a certain “pater Sebastian” (also known as Mátyás Paule), an inhabitant of the convent who also served as household chaplain to the widow of the aristocrat Miklós Zichy, smuggled the most valuable manuscripts out of the convent’s library. It is thus likely that the manuscript of Cicero was placed in the widow’s home library. This can be confirmed by the fact that, according to her home bookkeeping, she had her manuscripts rebound between the end of 1783 and August 1784 (record of extraordinary expanse between January 11 and August 1784: 22 forints, 72 kreutzers).23 In January 1796, a lot of books were placed in the University Library of ELTE as part of the Zichy bequest, but this manuscript is not on the booklist.24 The next trace is the possessor’s seal of the historian and the head of the Museum Library, István Horvát. It seems that he somehow acquired this precious manuscript in spite of the fact that it was part of the Zichy family’s bequest. After his death, the codex was placed in the National Library (today the National Széchényi Library) on April 29, 1852.25

The folios were mixed up from the verso of 30 supposedly during the process of rebinding or restoration (most likely before it was added to the National Library), when the folios were provided with printed folio numbers in the upper righthand corner. The correct order of the folio numbers is as follows: 30v (Tusc. disp. 1.94.12) + 41r–90v (Tusc. disp. 1.94.12–3.60) + 31r–40v (Tusc. disp. 3.60.5–4.8.6) + 91r–150v (Tusc. disp. 4.8.6–5.121.4). Here, the manuscript is interrupted and missing the last two sentences (until the Tusc. disp. 5.121.10) on the missing page.

 

1450–1468

The Cod. lat. 150 was written in Florence

1464–1468

Báthory might have bought the codex

April 1475

Báthory was reading in Rákosmező

1776

Trinitarian convent in Kiscell (Óbuda)

1782–1784

The codex was no longer in the friary

April 29, 1852

National Library

July 1954

Restoration

 

Notes in the Cod. Lat. 150

As far as I have been able to determine, the notes in the Cicero-codex come from four hands. One of them could be Báthory’s. Unfortunately, we do not have any official charter or letter with Báthory’s manu propria. But comparing the notes of the Iamblichus edition owned by Báthory to the Cicero codex, it can be safely stated that the marginal annotations from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were written by the same hand. The notes are all the more interesting because of their character: they resemble a compilation of the Stoic thoughts about fortune’s spin and apathy, or school notes taken for a later composition.

Four kinds of notes can be discerned in the Cicero codex which were written in black and red ink:

 

1) One type of nota bene entries: 14 black (ff. 28r, 31r, 33r, 52v, 53r, 81r, 82v, 83v, 99v, 100v, 119v, 125v, 127v, 128r), 6 red (ff. 31r, 35r, 94v, 134v, 139r, 146r).

 

2) Minimum three types of index fingers: 12 black (ff. 12r, 40r, 41r, 51v, 53v, 59v, 65v, 67r, 80v, 105v, 130v), 29 red (ff. 30r, 33v, 34v, 35r, 38r, 42v, 45v, 46r, 61v, 67r, 67v, 69v, 72v, 74v, 81r, 82v, 94v, 110r, 114r, 126v, 127r, 131v, 134v, 143v, 144v, 145r, 146r, 147v).

 

3) Minimum two types of simple nota bene entries: 11 black (30r, 30v, 50r, 51v, 53v, 54v, 59r, 68r, 81r, 91r, 121r), ca. 112 red.

 

4) Texts: a) the note only repeats the sentence or name(s) in the margin; b) the note details, improves, or adds something to the text.

 

Báthory’s Iamblichus edition contains the same 50 nota bene entries, 72 drawn index fingers, and many of the third type of “simple nota bene.” This means that the two volumes were in the same person’s possession at some time. Báthory’s coat-of-arms proves that the Cicero-codex was in his possession, and the fact that the Iamblichus edition contains the same notes suggests that this book was also in his library. This assumption is strengthened by the places and types of the notes which may refer to his Platonic school foundation plans. I return to this in the last part of the paper.

Index fingers in Cod. Lat. 150 Index fingers in Ráth F 1493

 

Each nota bene entry points to the topic of the Stoic’s apatheia and capricious fortune in Cicero’s text, according to which we must prepare ourselves for misfortunes in order to suffer them calmly.

28r (Tusc. disp. 1.86.15–1.87.2): The example of fortuna Metelli. Although everyone hopes to have Metellus’s good fortune, in fact death liberates us all from pain and adversity.

 

52v–53r (Tusc. disp. 2.10.3–2.11.8): About the fear of dying and the metaphor of cultivated fields. Although there are too many false philosophers who lead disgraceful lives, true philosophy is a remedy which, by curing the soul, can drive away fears.

81r (Tusc. disp. 3.30.10–3.30.20): The nota draws attention to the interpretation of an example of Anaxagoras and a citation by a pseudo-Euripides: “Therefore, it does not admit of doubt that everything which is thought evil is more grievous if it comes unexpectedly. And so, though this is not the one cause of the greatest distress, yet as foresight and anticipation have considerable effect in lessening pain, a human being should ponder all the vicissitudes that fall to man’s lot. And do not doubt that here is found the ideal of that wisdom which excels and is divine, namely in the thorough study and comprehension of human vicissitudes, in being astonished at nothing when it happens, and in thinking, before the event is come, that there is nothing which may not come to pass.”26

 

82v (Tusc. disp. 3.34.7–3.34.19): Same as above: everyone should be prepared for everything. “For the man who reflects upon nature, upon the diversity of life and the weakness of humanity, is not saddened by reflecting upon these things, but in doing so he fulfils most completely the function of wisdom. For he gains doubly, in that by considering the vicissitudes of human life he has the enjoyment of the peculiar duty of philosophy, and in adversity he finds a threefold relief to aid his restoration; first because he has long since reflected on the possibility of mishap, and this is far the best method of lessening and weakening all vexation; secondly because he understands that the lot of man must be endured in the spirit of man; lastly because he sees that there is no evil but guilt, but that there is no guilt when the issue is one against which a man can give no guarantee.”27

 

83v (Tusc. disp. 3.36.11–3.37.11): Reflections and critique of Epicurus’s notion of “The Good” from the viewpoint of Pythagoras, Plato, and Socrates. Virtue is self-sufficient for happiness and living a good life.

31r (Tusc. disp. 3.60.6–3.62.4): Cicero refers to Chrysippus on the enduring of human destiny and the reduction of grief.

33r (Tusc. disp. 3.68.3–3.69.1): Cicero quotes Euripides and compares grief to wisdom. Although there is no evil worse than the lack of wisdom, “there is no adapting the belief that it is right and regular and a matter of duty to feel distressed at not being wise.”28

35r (Tusc. disp. 3.73.20–3.74.4): It is proper to Folly that it observes the faults of others and forgets its own. “Since it is agreed that distress is removed by long continuance, the chief proof is the fact that it is not the mere lapse of time that produces this effect, but continued reflection.”29

99v (Tusc. disp. 4.37.6–4.38.5): “Therefore the man, whoever he is, whose soul is tranquillized by restraint and consistency and who is at peace with himself, so that he neither pines away in distress, nor is broken down by fear, nor consumed with a thirst of longing in pursuit of some ambition, nor maudlin in the exuberance of meaningless eagerness - he is the wise man of whom we are in quest, he is the happy man who can think no human occurrence insupportable to the point of dispiriting him, or unduly delightful to the point of rousing him to ecstasy. For what can seem of moment in human occurrences to a man who keeps all eternity before his eyes and knows the vastness of the universe? Nay, what either in human ambitions or in the short span of our brief life can seem of moment to the wise man whose soul is ever on the watch to prevent the occurrence of anything unforeseen, anything unexpected, anything whatever that is strange? Further he also directs so searching a glance in all directions with the constant aim of finding an assured retreat for a life free from vexation and worry, that, whatever reverse fortune may inflict, he shoulders his burden tranquilly: and he who shall do this will not only be free from distress but from all other disorders as well.”30

 

119v (Tusc. disp. 5.15.14–5.16.10): One who is afraid of death, pain, poverty, ignominy, infamy, debility, blindness, and slavery is unhappy. And one who is inflamed and maddened by rabid desires and unsatisfiable yearnings is also utterly miserable.

125v (Tusc. disp. 5.36.2–5.36.14): Cicero quotes a part of Plato’s Menexenus as a sacred and august fountain about the happy life which entirely depends on virtue.

127v (Tusc. disp. 5.42.11–5.43.9): About contempt for death through the example of the Spartans. The wise man is always happy because he is untinged with the two perturbations of the soul: grief and fear from imagined evils and inordinate joy and passionate desire.

128r (Tusc. disp. 5.45.1–5.45.7): That man who has everything (health, strength, beauty, wealth, honor etc.) he can, but is dishonest, intemperate, cowardly, and dull can be called miserable, too. What good are these things if their owner can be the most miserable man?

139r (Tusc. disp. 5.81.3–5.82.1): The wise man does nothing against his own will, nothing of which he can repent.

146r (Tusc. disp. 5.105.7–5.105.14): As the final word of the owner of the notes: “What vexation therefore they escape who have no dealings with whatever with the people! For what is more delightful than leisure devoted to literature? That literature I mean which gives us the knowledge of the infinite greatness of nature and, in this actual world of ours, of the sky, the lands, the seas.”31

Text Entries in the Cod. Lat. 150

Most of the text entries only put stress on the given text location which was important to the reader for some reasons. The following are some examples:

 

On f. 24r (Tusc. disp. 1.74.8), an interlinear note above the part of the text where Cicero mentions Cato and Socrates, who joyfully passed from the dark life into the light in their deaths: corporis quod est carcer animi. There is another interpretative note in the margin: Tota philosophia est commentatio mortis (philosophy is a preparation for death).

On f. 25v (Tusc. disp. 1.79.5), referring to the Stoic-Platonic Panaetius and the text according to which Plato is Homer of the philosophers (“Plato Homerus philosophorum” is written in the margin with red ink), the note shows the possessor’s interest in the flaming Averroist disputes over the immortality of the souls at the turn of fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The note “Opponitur contra immortalitatem animae” draws attention to Panaetius’s arguments against the immortality of the soul. It is important to note that the reader, supposedly the same reader (probably Báthory himself), also pointed out this philosophical problem in the margin in Alcinous’s work in the Iamblichus edition ([S8v]): “Demonstratio de immortalitate animi.”

On f. 46v (Tusc. disp. 1.110–111), a citation from Juvenile’s tenth satire (10.97: sed quae praeclara et prospera tanti, ut rebus laetis par sit mensura malorum?) on the example of Diagoras of Rhodes, for which the text offers the following explanation: “Indeed he will even be ready to die in the midst of prosperity; for no accumulation of successes can afford so much delight as their diminution will cause annoyance.”

On f. 63v (Tusc. disp. 2.45.7), the “Et tu cautus Cicero noluisti terminare quousque honestum pro amico transgredi liceret” sentence can be found in the margin, which ironically comments on Cicero’s critical reflection on Epicurus’s thoughts about any intense pains which can be borne for the sake of honesty.

On f. 111r (Tusc. disp. 4.71), a citation from Ovid’s Ars amatoria (1.281–282: Parcior in nobis nec tam furiosa libido: legitimum finem flamma virilis habet [The desire in us is more moderate and not so furious: the virile flame has its legal limits]) on Cicero’s words about homosexuality: “Again, not to speak of the love of women, to which nature has granted wider tolerance, who has either any doubt of the meaning of the poets in the tale of the rape of Ganymede, or fails to understand the purport of Laius language and his desire in Euripides’ play?”32

On f. 146r (5.104), another quotation from Juvenile’s tenth satire (10.5–6), which is written in the margin by the part of the text about the condemnation of the tastes of the masses: Quid tam dextro pede concipis ut te conatus non paeniteat votique peracti?

 

Letter shapes

Word Definitions and Greek Notes in the Cod. Lat. 150

On f. 4r (Tusc. disp. 1.10):

Above the question “traiectio Acherontis?” the word “traiectio” is rewritten as “transuectio” and explained in the margin on the righthand side of the page: “transuectio si esset referetur ad caron: transmissio autem et transitio semper refert ad fluuium et traiectio ut hic patere reperitur.” The next question is a citation of a verse from an unidentified tragedy: “mento summam aquam attingens enectus siti Tantalus?” The word enectus is defined at the bottom of 4r: “Eneco enecas enecatum cum in supino inde enecatus semper illum significat vt inquit priscianus cesariensis qui maiori violencia vt puta ferro aut fune fuerit interfectus enectum uero dicimus aut siti aut veneno aut frigore confectum. et sic apud bene loquentes obseruatur.”

The Greek notes were written by at least two hands. The original, most likely Italian scribe did not know the Greek alphabet and omitted spaces for the Greek words. Later, some of the readers tried to correct this deficiency and added the Greek words in some places in the text. Generally speaking, these not very skilled hands sometimes transcribed the Latin letter “Y” with the Greek “υ” and sometimes with the Greek “ι.” In most cases, the readers only specified the Latin words with their Greek definitions or meanings. For example, on f. 93v–95v (Tusc. disp. 4.16–26), some Stoic concepts were defined with their original Greek version in the margin (pigritia as ὄκνοσ [sic!], terror as ἔκπληξι[ς], molestia as ἀνϋα [sic!]). There are no Greek notes in the Iamblichus edition at all.

Conclusions

To sum up, Miklós Báthory was a highly educated humanist and cultural patron who tried to found an academy-like school in Buda which would have been very progressive for its time and which would have channeled the Platonist movement to Hungary through the central figures of the Florentine intellectual circle. His efforts were unsuccessful, but later, he founded a so-called “gymnasium” in Vác. Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about either of them. Now, the only palpable proof of his intellectual efforts is his surviving books listed above and Galeotto Marzio’s anecdote about the suspicious and mocking attitude of the Hungarian political elite toward any intellectual endeavor.

Based on the same notes in the Iamblichus edition and the Cicero codex, we can conclude that the two books were owned by the same man for a while time in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Because Báthory’s coat-of-arms is painted on the f. 1r of Cod. Lat. 150, it can safely be assumed that at least some of the notes may have come from Báthory’s hand.

Although there are no Greek notes in the Iamblichus volume, the Latin notes originate from one person. Therefore, the nota bene entries and drawn index fingers also were written by this hand, which also wrote at least some of the nota bene entries in the Cicero codex.

What little remains of Báthory’s library perfectly harmonizes with his aspirations to found a Platonic school in Buda and later his gymnasium in Vác, which might also have been infiltrated by a kind of Platonist spirituality. Because of the scarcity of information, this remains a bold hypothesis. Nevertheless, why would he have given up his plans for a Platonist school after the death of King Matthias? Maybe it is just a coincidence, but at least three of the four books which we know where part of his library and his surviving notes offer support for this theory, and they suggest a noticeable pattern. Ficino might have intended his Iamblichus edition to be a schoolbook which included his twelve translations or rather excerpts of lesser known Platonist and some short Pythagorean works: for example Speusippus’s De Platonis definitionibus or Proclus’s commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades or the short Pythagorean work entitled Symbola. Most of the notes are in Alcinous’s Middle Platonist schoolbook on the basic Platonist concepts: De doctrina Platonis (Plato’s doctrine). Báthory’s 1496 Commentaria in Platonem by Ficino speaks for itself, because it is a commentary on Plato’s complete works. Perhaps the odd one out is the second manuscript, that is Hilary’s theological work against the Arian heresy. However, Hilary is not just an exception but also a borderline case. He was a Neoplatonist thinker who left his philosophical tradition for Christianity. Consequently, in this sense, he, as an ex-Platonist, may have been interesting to Báthory. Finally, the notes in the Cicero codex also suggest the owner’s intention to collect a practical Stoic-Platonic florilegium which might have been used as a philosophical schoolbook.

Bibliography

Analecta nova ad historiam renascentium in Hungaria litterarum spectantia Edited by Jenő Ábel, and István Hegedüs. Budapest: Hornyánszky, 1903.

Berlász Jenő. “Horvát István könyvtárának megszerzése a Nemzeti Könyvtár számára” [Acquisition of István Horvát’s library for the National Library]. Az Országos Széchényi Könyvtár évkönyve, 7 (1963–1964): 251–64.

Bonfinis, Antonius de. Rerum Ungaricarum decades. Edited by József Fógel, Béla Iványi, and László Juhász. Leipzig: Teubner, 1936–1976.

Cicero. Tusculan disputations. Translated by J. E. King. London: Heinemann, 1966.

C. Tóth Norbert. “Ki kicsoda az ecsedi Bátori családban? A Bátori család ecsedi ágának tagjai (1377–1541)” [Who’s who in the Bátori family of Ecsed? The members of the Bátori family of Ecsed (1377–1541)]. Szabolcs-Szatmár-Beregi Szemle 44 (2009): 5–47.

Csapodi Csaba, and Klára Csapodiné Gárdonyi. Bibliotheca Hungarica: kódexek és nyomtatott könyvek Magyarországon 1526 előtt. Vol. 1. Budapest: MTAK, 1988.

Della Torre, Arnaldo. Storia dell’accademia platonica di Firenze. Florence: G. Carnesecchi e figli, 1902.

Ficinus, Marsilius. Opera omnia. Basel: Ex officina Henric Petrina, 1576.

Hermann, Julius Hermann. Die Handschriften und Inkunabeln der italienischen Renaissance. Vol. 3, Mittelitalien: Toskana, Umbrien, Rom. Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1932.

Hoffmann Edit. Régi magyar bibliofilek [Old Hungarian bibliophiles]. Reprinted by Tünde Wehli. Budapest: MTA Művtört. Kut. Int., 1992.

Huszti József. Platonista törekvések Mátyás király udvarában. Pécs: Dunántúl, 1925.

Kiss Farkas Gábor. “Franciscus Pescennius Niger Báthory Miklós váci püspök udvarában és a Scholasticum Orosianae iuventutis dramma” [Franciscus Pescennius Niger in the court of M. B. and his Scholasticum Orosianae Iuventutis Dramma]. Magyar Könyvszemle 129 (2013): 265–81.

Klaniczay Tibor. “Platonista akadémia Budán?” [A Platonic academy in Buda?]. In Tibor Klaniczay, A magyarországi akadémiai mozgalom előtörténete, 43–49. Budapest: Balassi, 1993.

Klaniczay Tibor. “La corte di Mattia Corvino e il pensiero academico.” In Mathias Corvinus and the Humanism in Central Europe, edited by József Jankovics, and Tibor Klaniczay, 165–74. Budapest: Balassi, 1994.

Kubinyi András. “Báthory Miklós és családja politikai szereplése” [The political role of Miklós Báthory and his family]. In Báthory Miklós váci püspök (1474–1506) emlékezete, edited by Alice Horváth, 13–30. Vác: Váci Egyházmegyei Gyűjtemény, 2007.

Martius Narniensis, Galeottus. De egregie, sapienter, iocose dictis ac factis regis Mathiae: ad ducem Iohannem eius filium liber, edited by László Juhász. Leipzig: Teubner, 1934.

Mercati, Giovanni. “Francesco Pescennio Negro Veneto protonotario Apostolico.” In Giovanni Mercati. Ultimi contributi alla storia degli umanisti. Vol. 2, 24–128. Vatican: Bibloteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1939.

Mikó Árpád. “Báthory Miklós püspök és a reneszánsz művészet emlékei Vácott” [The bishop M. B. and the remnants of Renaissance art in Vác]. In Báthory Miklós váci püspök (1474–1506) emlékezete, edited by Alice Horváth, 117–30. Vác: Váci Egyházmegyei Gyűjtemény, 2007.

Molnár Dávid. “Báthory Miklós váci püspök filozófiai műveltségének lehetséges nyomai egy Ficino fordításában megjelent 1497-es Iamblikhosz-kiadásban” [Possible traces of the philosophical literacy of bishop Miklós Báthory in a copy of an Iamblichus edition from 1497]. In Stephanus noster: Tanulmányok Bartók István 60. születésnapjára, edited by József Jankovics et al., 41–55. Budapest: Reciti, 2015.

Pajorin Klára. “Mátyás király és Marsilio Ficino magyar hívei az 1472. évi összeesküvés után” [Followers of King Mathias, and Marsilio Ficino after the conspiracy in 1472]. In Arcana tabularii: Tanulmányok Solymosi László tiszteletére, edited by Attila Bárány, Gábor Dreska, Kornél Szovák, 593–606. Budapest, Debrecen: Debreceni Egyetem, 2014.

Pálvölgyi Endre. “Főúri és klerikális összefogás II. József könyvtári intézkedései ellen:Zichy Miklósné könyvhagyatéka és a kiscelli trinitárius kolostor könyvtára” [Aristocratic and clerical cooperation against Joseph II’s provisions of the libraries: The book bequest of the wife of Miklós Zichy and the library of the Trinitarian convent in Kiscell]. Tanulmányok Budapest múltjából 14 (1961): 343–62.

Pietro Lombardi, Paola di. “Mátyás emblémái” [Matthias’s emblems]. In A holló jegyében: Fejezetek a corvinák történetéből. Edited by István Monok, 157–76. Budapest: Corvina Kiadó, OSZK, 2004.

Ransanus, Petrus. Epithoma rerum hungararum: Id est annalium omnium temporum liber primus et sexagesimus. Edited by Péter Kulcsár. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1977.

Rhodes, Dennis E. “Battista Guarini and a book at Oxford.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 37 (1974): 349–53.

Ritoókné Szalay Ágnes. “Báthory Miklós váci püspök (1474–1506) epitáfiuma” [The bishop of Vác (1474–1506), Miklós Báthory’s epitaph]. In Báthory Miklós váci püspök (1474–1506) emlékezete, edited by Alice Horváth, 157–67. Vác: Váci Egyházmegyei Gyűjtemény, 2007.

Rozsondai Marianne. “A Hungarian Renaissance binding in Oxford and its counterpart in Budapest.” The Book Collector 40 (1991): 371–81.

Rozsondai Marianne. “Báthory Miklós váci püspök könyvtárának feltételezhető darabjai” [Presumable copies of Miklós Báthory’s library]. In Báthory Miklós váci püspök (1474–1506) emlékezete, edited by Alice Horváth, 131–45. Vác: Váci Egyházmegyei Gyűjtemény, 2007.

Soltész Zoltánné. “Garázda Péter, Nagylucsei Orbán és Szatmári György ismeretlen könyvei” [Péter Garázda’s, Orbán Nagylucsei’s and György Szatmári’s unknown books]. Művészettörténeti Értesítő 7 (1958): 120–23.

Zsupán Edina. “A corvina könyvtár ‘első címerfestője’: stílushűség és imitáció. A Philostratus- és a Ransanus-corvina provenienciájához” [The “first emblazoner” of the corvina library: stylistic authenticity and imitation. New approach to the provenance of the Philostratus corvina and the Ransanus corvina]. Művészettörténeti Értesítő 66 (2017): 273–302.

1 According to Marzio, Báthory was the one who encouraged him to write this book about King Matthias. Martius Narniensis, De egregie (cap. 31), 34: “Et, ut ad rem nostram revertamur, Budae cum cogeretur principum concilium et nondum ad regem aditus pateret, inter eos erat Nicholaus Bathur, genere nobilis, dignitate episcopus Vaciensis. Est enim Vacia vigesimo a Buda miliario; sed Budam a Vacia secundo flumine devenitur. Hic igitur Nicholaus episcopus virtute et animi generositate dignitateque corporis cumulatus maxime erat: studiis namque humanitatis in Italia eruditus, cura et diligentia doctrinam adaugens, nihil laboris, nihil vigiliarum, nihil impedii subterfugiens quod ad doctrinam conveniret, brevi effecit ut doctissimis acutissimisque philosophis eius doctrina et et litteratura summa cum admiratione probaretur. Qui, dum congregatio principum cogeretur, ne otio et garrulitati locum praeberet, habuit secum librum, si recte memini, Ciceronis cui Tusculanarum quaestionum est titulus. Irridentibus multis huius egregii iuvenis librorum lectionem, ibi inusitatam (novum quippe videbatur Hungaris episcopum lectitare, in eo praesertim loco ubi sermo et confabulatio esse consueverat).”

2 C. Tóth, “Ki kicsoda,” 19.

3 Kubinyi, “Báthory Miklós,” 13–15, 22.

4 Bonfinis, Rerum (dec. 1, lib. 1), 9, 30.

5 Martius Narniensis, De egregie (cap. 31), 34.

6 Kubinyi, “Báthory Miklós,” 18–19; C. Tóth, “Ki kicsoda,” 19–21.

7 Ransanus, Epithoma, 81; Ritoókné Szalay, “Báthory Miklós,” 160.

8 Mikó, “Báthory Miklós.”

9 Ritoókné Szalay, “Báthory Miklós,” 162–64; Pajorin, “Mátyás király,” 604–5.

10 Ficinus, Opera, 782, 857, 884; Della Torre, Storia dell’accademia, 100–2; Huszti, Platonista törekvések; Klaniczay, “Platonista akadémia”; Klaniczay, “La corte di Mattia Corvino,” 166–69.

11 Mercati, “Francesco Pescennio Negro,” 71–72; Kiss, “Franciscus Pescennius Niger,” 272–73.

12 C. Tóth, “Ki kicsoda,” 19.

13 Rozsondai, “Báthory Miklós,” 131.

14 Hoffmann, Régi magyar, 109–10; Soltész, “Garázda Péter,” 122–23; Hermann, Die Handschriften, 24–25.

15 Rozsondai, “Báthory Miklós,” 136–37. Detailed analysis: Molnár, “Báthory Miklós.”

16 Rhodes, “Battista Guarini;” Rozsondai, “A Hungarian Renaissance.”

17 Zsupán, “Stílushűség és imitáció;” Pietro Lombardi, “Mátyás emblémái,” 168–69, 173.

18 Molnár, “Báthory Miklós,” 41–43.

19 Analecta nova, 442; Rozsondai, “Báthory Miklós,” 132.

20 Huszti, Platonista törekvések, 88; Ransanus, Epithoma, 81.

21 Csapodi, Csapodiné Gárdonyi, Bibliotheca Hungarica, 243.

22 The catalogue is dated March 5, 1784 and kept today in the University Library of ELTE (Department of Manuscripts, J 100/3): Catalogus librorum Bibliothecae PP. Trinitariorum aboliti Conventus Vetero Budensis. The chairmans of the committee responsible for the census of the books were Imre Laczkovics, vicecomes of Pest County and Imre Majthényi, the prefect of the estate of the Chamber of Óbuda.

23 Pálvölgyi, “Főúri és klerikális összefogás,” 353–55.

24 University Library of ELTE, Department of Manuscripts, J 47/1: Catalogus librorum, quos excellentissima ac illustrissima Domina Comitis. Nicolai Ziczy de Vasonkő vidua, nata Comitissa Berényi de Karáncs Berény Budae defuncta die 2 Januarii 1796. Regiae Scientiarum Universitati Hungaricae testamento legavit.

25 Berlász, “Horvát István könyvtárának,” 254–61.

26 Cicero, Tusculan, 263. “Ergo id quidem non dubium, quin omnia, quae mala putentur, sint improvisa graviora. Itaque quamquam non haec una res efficit maximam aegritudinem, tamen, quoniam multum potest provisio animi et praeparatio ad minuendum dolorem, sint semper omnia homini humana meditata. Et nimirum haec est illa praestans et divina sapientia et perceptas penitus et pertractatas res humanas habere, nihil admirari cum acciderit, nihil, ante quam evenerit, non evenire posse arbitrari.”

27 Cicero, Tusculan, 267–69. “Neque enim qui rerum naturam, qui vitae varietatem, qui imbecillitatem generis humani cogitat, maeret, cum haec cogitat, sed tum vel maxime sapientiae fungitur munere. Utrumque enim consequitur, ut et considerandis rebus humanis proprio philosophiae fruatur officio et adversis casibus triplici consolatione sanetur: primum quod posse accidere diu cogitavit, quae cogitatio una maxime molestias omnes extenuat et diluit; deinde quod humana humane ferenda intellegit; postremo quod videt malum nullum esse nisi culpam, culpam autem nullam esse, cum id, quod ab homine non potuerit praestari, evenerit.”

28 Cicero, Tusculan, 307. “Quid ita? quia huic generi malorum non adfingitur illa opinio, rectum esse et aequum et ad officium pertinere aegre ferre, quod sapiens non sis…”

29 Cicero, Tusculan, 313. “Sed nimirum hoc maximum est experimentum, cum constet aegritudinem vetustate tolli, hanc vim non esse in die positam, sed in cogitatione diuturna.”

30 Cicero, Tusculan, 367–69. “Ergo, hic, quisquis est qui moderatione et constantia quietus animo est sibique ipse placatus, ut nec tabescat molestiis nec frangatur timore nec sitienter quid expetens ardeat desiderio nec alacritate futili gestiens deliquescat, is est sapiens quem quaerimus, is est beatus, cui nihil humanarum rerum aut intolerabile ad demittendum animum aut nimis laetabile ad ecferendum videri potest. Quid enim videatur ei magnum in rebus humanis, cui aeternitas omnis totiusque mundi nota sit magnitudo? Nam quid aut in studiis humanis aut in tam exigua brevitate vitae magnum sapienti videri potest, qui semper animo sic excubat, ut ei nihil inprovisum accidere possit, nihil inopinatum, nihil omnino novum? Atque idem ita acrem in omnis partis aciem intendit, ut semper videat sedem sibi ac locum sine molestia atque angore vivendi, ut, quemcumque casum fortuna invexerit, hunc apte et quiete ferat. Quod qui faciet, non aegritudine solum vacabit, sed etiam perturbationibus reliquis omnibus.”

31 Cicero, Tusculan, 531. “Quantis igitur molestiis vacant qui nihil omnino cum populo contrahunt! Quid est enim dulcius otio litterato? iis dico litteris, quibus infinitatem rerum atque naturae et in hoc ipso mundo caelum, terras, maria cognoscimus.”

32 Cicero, Tusculan, 409. “Atque, ut muliebris amores omittam, quibus maiorem licentiam natura concessit, quis aut de Ganymedi raptu dubitat, quid poetae velint aut non intelligit, quid apud Euripidem et loquatur et cupiat Laius?”

D:\Grammata\TANULMÁNY\2019\Báthory Cicero\KÉPEK\Hilarius Báthory.jpg

The reversed trace of the faded coat-of-arms refined in the Hilarius Pictaviensis-codex with HDR effect and layered by Báthory’s coat-of-arms from his Cicero-codex

D:\Grammata\TANULMÁNY\2019\Báthory Cicero\KÉPEK\Hilarius Báthory_2.jpg
D:\Grammata\TANULMÁNY\2019\Báthory Cicero\KÉPEK\Hilarius Báthory_3.jpg
D:\Grammata\TANULMÁNY\2019\Báthory Cicero\KÉPEK\plotinus.jpg
D:\Grammata\TANULMÁNY\2019\Báthory Cicero\KÉPEK\cicero fingers.jpg
D:\Grammata\TANULMÁNY\2019\Báthory Cicero\KÉPEK\Iamblichus fingers.jpg
D:\Grammata\TANULMÁNY\2019\Báthory Cicero\KÉPEK\Nota.jpg

Nota bene entries in Cod. Lat. 150 and Ráth F 1493

D:\Grammata\TANULMÁNY\2019\Báthory Cicero\KÉPEK\letters_02.jpeg

2019_3_Almási

pdf

Volume 8 Issue 3 CONTENTS

The Work Ethic in Humanist Biographies: The Case of Willem Canter

Gábor Almási
Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This article is a case study of the work ethic as represented in biographies of humanists. It draws first and foremost on Melchior Adam’s anthology of biographies of learned “German” men of 1615–1620. The analysis of some of the longer biographies reveals that Adam was more dependent on his sources than previous research supposed. Moreover, the stress on the education and diligence of the individuals in several of the biographies follows not from Adam’s interests, but rather from the logic of humanist biographies, a primary function of which was to legitimate social rise, redefine social values according to meritocratic principles, and promote the Renaissance ideology of virtue. The vita of William Canter, which I analyze in considerable detail, illustrates how early modern biographies tended to construct the self on the basis of ancient and more recent clichés and to present ideal types. The work ethic represented by Canter’s scholarly persona reveals that hard work in the Renaissance was intrinsically linked to disciplined time-management.

Keywords: Canter, Adam, the work ethic, Renaissance, biography

The memory of the great Dutch humanist Willem Canter (Gulielmus Canterus) (1542–1575) has been preserved primarily in his numerous philological publications, which were the products of a short but assiduous life. Canter authored innumerable editions and translations, primarily of works by Greek authors, including for instance translations of all the dramas of Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus into Latin. His attitude to text edition and the use of critical apparatus was exemplary in terms of sixteenth-century scholarship. In fact, Canter not only published several first-rate Greek poets and prose writers, relying on as many manuscripts as the Republic of Letters could provide him, but was also the author of a practical handbook on the ars corrigendi of Greek texts, which was a great deal more useful than either of the other two that appeared in the sixteenth century.1 It was a practical guide which offered a wealth of examples of the ways in which Greek texts, from single letters to whole words, were usually corrupted by scribes. Since most of his letters were lost, everything we know of his life comes from a single source, Melchior Adam’s biographical anthology from 1615. Adam’s detailed biography presents Canter as a scholar-monk who shunned human company, parties, and women and who dedicated most of his time to philological studies. This article will focus on this particular biography and will attempt to understand its relation to Adam’s biographical anthology, explain its constructed nature, and fit it into the humanist biographical tradition as an illustration of the importance of the work ethic to the humanist ethos.

Melchior Adam’s Biographies of Learned Men

Melchior Adam (1575–1622) was not simply an archetypal figure of German Späthumanismus. He was one of its crowning figures. Most importantly, Adam is known because of his huge anthology of the biographies of 546 German intellectuals living in the long sixteenth century (c. 1480–1620). His lives preserved the memory of a cultural epoch (Renaissance humanism) which in the 1610s was rapidly waning.2 In certain ways, it was a pioneering work in the biographical tradition and a substantial contribution to posterity’s image of late flourishing of classical learning within a thriving Republic of Letters in Central Europe. Yet it was not only a monument to the Republic of Letters and a strong expression of its virtue and communal spirit, but also a study on the uses of culture and learning in general. In Adam’s own words, his goal was to promulgate the glory of great men, provide examples of virtue and learning, and extoll his fatherland.3 He divided his work into five volumes according to the academic faculties: the vitae of “philosophers” (i.e. humanists) appeared first in 1615 and was followed by volumes on physicians, theologians, and jurists-politicians in 1620.4 While most of the biographies are only a few pages long, in a number of cases we have lengthy and nuanced reconstructions rich with vivid detail, which add real value to Adam’s work.5

Overall, Adam’s collective bibliographies represented a new direction in history writing, even if he drew on certain classical and Renaissance precedents.6 He opened the dedication of the volume on theologians with the claim that histories on the lives of individuals offer as much entertainment and knowledge of the past as do universal, ecclesiastical, or political histories. He recognized that the art of biography writing went back to Old Testament times and indeed that the Gospels themselves fell into the category of biography.7 The several Christian forerunners mentioned in the preface include Isidore of Seville and Gennadius of Massilia, followed by Philo, Plutarch, Diogenes Laërtius, and other minor Greek authors. Curiously, Latin writers, most importantly Suetonius, and Renaissance forerunners, are missing. Adam’s attention shifts instead from Greek authors to learned rulers, mentioning, for example, Matthias Corvinus just before Cyrus. Adam uses this rather sketchy and superficial historical overview of the genre of the biography only to make the claim that he has been following a long tradition. He started collecting documents concerning the lives of some German men, a job he felt he had to do as a duty to the “common fatherland,” simply by drawing on the example of authors from antiquity.8 Yet his heroes are not the usual viri illustri, distinguished by wealth, success, or political-military achievements. At most, they vaguely resemble the “philosophers” described by Diogenes Laërtius, but they are neither necessarily famous nor successful: “a few years ago, I started collecting here and there some men born in our Germany commended either by their great learning or their merits in the Church of God or in the Christian Republic, joining them together in a single corpus [of lives].”9

Although we have no comprehensive study of the methods on which Adam based his selection, his irenic stance has justly been underlined.10 One of the factors which was certainly highly important for him was the supra-confessional character of his selection. When picking the men to be included (there is only a single woman), he allegedly considered only their “proven virtues” and “orthodox religion.”11 In other words, through his selection of men of different religious groups, Adam was offering a new definition of orthodoxy which was certainly anti-papal and gravitated towards Philippism, but which was not reduced to any confessional group. Overall, he promoted an Erasmian via media, believing principally in good morals and learning as the true foundations of religious life. Equally important, however, was another, more secular message of Adam’s Vitae, which concerned the significance of virtue and erudition; his main criteria of glory (i.e. inclusion) were the individuals’ education, learning, and virtuous life. In this sense, his viri illustri constituted a peculiar, meritocratic society of learned men, in which one found one’s place not because of descent, authority, or on the battlefield deeds, but solely due to one’s own efforts and labors, which were done in the interest of the common good, i.e. the growth of learning and general welfare. This was true even of the volume of “politicians” and “jurists,” who were typically people with some legal education, some of whom had had careers in politics.

The principal questions addressed in the earlier scholarship concerned Adam’s credibility and methods. How reliable are his biographies as historical sources? How did he work?12 In attempting to offer an answer to these questions, Robert Seidel contrasted Adam’s professed aim to stay close to his sources and provide a balanced assessment based on multiple historical documents with his apparently uncritical and incoherent working method. Although Adam presented himself as a simple compiler and affirmed that “nothing is mine here and nothing is meant to be mine, except for collecting, ordering, and some stylistic polishing,” he also acknowledged the problem of the scarcity and reliability of his sources and their general tendency, as a response to the expectation of his times, to eulogize.13 To be sure, he worked diligently on his magnum opus, and he attempted to collect and read all relevant sources available to him, which were many in number, since he had access to the Bibliotheca Palatina.14 Still, he obviously did not always live up to his own scholarly expectations, and he often relied on a single source, copying it uncritically.15 Moreover, it appears that he was neither able nor wanted to work against the panegyric traditions of his age. After all, his major goal was not historical truthfulness but moral instruction. Consequently, several of his intellectual heroes were meant to be ideal types and paragons of different virtues and scholarly careers.

Adam’s Method and Ideals

Adam’s apparently fuzzy methodology warrants much caution. To what degree can we use his biographies as sources on the lives of Renaissance learned men? To what extent should we attribute the values and visions expressed in them to Adam himself? In trying to provide a more precise answer to these questions than anything found in the earlier secondary literature, I offer analyses of passages from a few of the longer biographies.

Our general knowledge of Adam’s life is probably more splotchy and vague than the general picture provided by an average biography in his Vitae. We do not even know his exact date of birth (traditionally dated to 1575).16 Adam came from a town in Silesia, Grodków (Grotkau, close to Wrocław/Breslau), and he studied for eight years in the grammar school of the neighboring town of Brzeg (Brieg), where he obtained the patronage of a local nobleman, which suggests that his parents could not support his continued study. He enrolled in the university in Heidelberg in 1598, and he received his M.A. two years later and then also studied some theology. Remaining in Heidelberg for the rest of his life, Adam found employment as a teacher in the city gymnasium, and from 1613 until his death in 1622, he held the office of rector. Writing biographies, thus, was his late-night hobby, not his job. He clearly had to work hard in order to write 546 bio-bibliographies in roughly five years while also attending to his teaching duties; in fact, in diligence, Adam approached even the greatest of his heroes. One hundred years later, his own biographer and critic Johann Gottlieb Krause offered the following recollection:

 

although the constitution of his body was weaker and his health was highly infirm throughout his life, he nevertheless never slept more than five or six hours, and he could spend whole nights or the breaks for eating sitting [at his desk] and copying texts useful to his work.17

Adam’s interest in education and pedagogy seems to find expression in many of the biographies, which often put particular stress on the family backgrounds and education of the individuals on whom they focus. Moreover, many of his viri illustri worked, as he did, as teachers and pedagogues (at least for part of their lives). Yet, the question remains of the extent to which Adam used the biographies to express his own ideas about education.

In one of the longer lives included into the volume of “philosophers” on the humanist and theologian Johannes Rivius (1500–1553), the text dedicates a colorful description to the pedagogical methods of Rivius’s teacher, Tilemannus Mylius, who practiced as a private teacher in Rivius’s hometown, Attendorn. We find in Mylius, who is totally unknown to modern research, an extremely dedicated teacher who espoused the most advanced humanistic concepts about education, which would put even present-day teachers to the test. Rivius’s master divided the day into periods for study, relaxation, gymnastics, and play, leaving no time for unruly behavior. He accommodated himself to childish playfulness in order not to make teaching annoying because of pedagogical rigor or the manners of an old man. He opened up his little garden for spiritual delights, and he turned the burden of learning into a charm. Leaving behind his personae as a theologian and an old man, he became a child again through playful learning.18 No surprise that Rivius, who later also became a teacher in Annaberg, had similarly advanced pedagogical methods. He used modern books and a differentiated approach to his pupils. He taught the basics of Latin grammar in the vernacular, and he devoted particular attention to students who were struggling, not rigidly specifying the number of months or years needed for the study of a particular author, but adapting to the needs of the students, according to their talents and age.19

Unfortunately, this knowledge of Rivius’s alleged enthusiastic interest in modern pedagogy comes not from Adam, but from another humanist educator, Georgius Fabricius (1516–71), who was Adam’s only source. Adam acknowledges Fabricius’s authorship only at the very end of the text, which is an exact copy of Fabricius’s work.20 Unlike Heinrich Pantaleon, who included only a short summary of Fabricius’s biography in his Prosopographiae heroum atque illustrium virorum, Adam loved his source so much that he quoted it word by word in its entirety.21

Another lengthy biography in the same volume is on one of the greatest educators of the century, the Silesian Valentin Trozendorf (1490–1556).22 Trozendorf, Adam emphasizes, came from a family of peasants, and his father was a superstitious man who frequented the local monks, who discovered Valentin’s talents. Despite paternal resentment, Valentin could thus leave his original environment and later study Latin and Greek with the greatest masters. Before moving to the University of Wittenberg, he was a teacher at the grammar school of Gorlice (Görlitz). He was so bright that he stood out among the teachers, to whom he was explaining nothing else but the bible of Renaissance educational thought, Plutarch’s The Education of Children. Eventually, Trozendorf, who was apparently destined to be a teacher, found employment at the gymnasium of Złotoryja (Goldberg), and he famously transformed the school into a flourishing institution. At this point, Adam’s biography turns into a history of Trozendorf’s educational methods, and it explains in detail the famous Goldberg school order which he invented. His school was modelled on the Roman republic, and it used both seniority and democracy as organizational principles. Pupils competed with one another. In questions of discipline, they had to listen to their peers, who were their regularly reelected superiors.

Was the reason for including this long digression on Trozendorf’ pedagogy the influence he had in Silesia and, in particular, on Adam’s educational practice? It is difficult to tell. In any case, Adam must have been aware of the significance of Trozendorf in the creation of a strong grammar school tradition in Silesia, which was instrumental in the emergence of a collective identity of Silesian intellectuals.23 Nevertheless, we might suspect that, in Trozendorf’s case, Adam’s biography again was determined by the sources available to him.24

Silesian humanist Joachim Cureus (1532–1573) was a student of Trozendorf. His life is told in the volume on doctors in another uniquely long narrative.25 Here again, we have a long introduction on Cureus’s education with a wealth of details concerning his father’s legendary learning, despite the fact that he became a baker. Concerning the way Cureus, who was already a mature student, eventually became a doctor, we are told that “order” is an essential requirement in life, especially in studies. Cureus managed to acquire medical knowledge so quickly only because of his orderly method of studying. He always fixed clear goals and he restricted himself to precise areas of knowledge.26 Once again, the reader might think these ideas are the fruit of Adam’s teaching experience, but actually they harmonize with what Cureus says in the long preface and introduction to his book on physics.27 However, Cureus’s preface was not Adam’s source; at the most, it was the source used by Johannes Ferinarius (1534–1602), another pedagogue, who published a detailed biography of Cureus in 1601.28 Adam only abridged Ferinarius’s vita, referring to it only at the very end of his text. All he did was to cut out entire paragraphs and add italics to some of the sentences he found especially relevant.

Another exceptionally long biography, this one on the life of the famous poet Helius Eobanus Hessus (1488–1540), was likewise motivated by the existence of a single biographical source, which Adam obviously highly valued: Joachim Camerarius’s Narratio de Helio Eobano Hesso (1553). As the thorough analysis by Klaus-Dieter Beims has recently shown, Adam again relied heavily and uncritically on his main source (which was far too lengthy to be taken over entirely), even if he also used Hessus’s letters (in Camerarius’s edition), adding some further details to the narrative.29

This short investigation into the longer biographies suggests that we should be very careful not to jump to conclusions about Adam’s own ideas or contributions. One gets the impression that Adam published longer biographies when he had access to existing biographies or other longer narratives which he found interesting and useful for his presentations of exemplary cases of lives. The accent on learning, education, and diligence was not necessarily an aspect of Adam’s pedagogical career and interests but a natural attribute of the genre. After all, Adam’s intention, presumably, was to memorialize people who stood out with their learning and intelligence.

It is ultimately this stress on education and diligence which appears to be one of the important distinguishing features of Renaissance biographies of learned men. This seems to be particularly true to Adam’s work: whether his heroes came from poor, modest, or “honestly” prosperous families, their advancement in life was due entirely to their efforts, their education and learning, and their investment in studies, which sometimes enjoyed the support of their parents and patrons and sometimes did not. The question of how some learned men used their talents and rose above their peers to live lives of learning, cultivation, and rational thought seems to be the central issue behind Adam’s monumental enterprise. The stress on the modest origins of many of the heroes and their talents and diligence fit the Renaissance ideology of virtue and the optimistic message about education turning potentially everyone into the architect of his own fortune.30 In fact, for Adam, poor family origins were no cause for embarrassment. Where, for example, Camerarius asserted that Eobanus Hessus had been “born of parents who were not particularly wealthy but were famous above all else for their honesty, integrity and modesty,” Adam simply states that, “although he had poor parents; they made sure to provide their sons a liberal education.”31 Likewise (just to mention another example), Adam asserts that both of Conrad Gesner’s parents were poor, but were nevertheless known for their honesty and integrity. He adds later that Gesner “was not ashamed to learn the names of plants from peasants, or even frequently from petty women […]. Peasants often have experience in all kinds of things, handed down from generation to generation.”32 Like many of his heroes, Adam came from a low social position, but thanks to his learning, he ascended. He came from a tiny town in Silesia and finished his life as a family man and rector of the Heidelberg city school.33

The Biography of Willem Canter (1542–1575)

The person who shines out with his diligence even among the diligent is the Dutch humanist Willem Canter. Once again, Adam provides an exceptionally long biography (the second longest in his work), full of juicy anecdotal details which render it especially vivid.34 We may rightly suspect again that Adam had access to a particular source, written by a person who knew Canter and undertook more profound research, informing the reader even about the exact hour of his birth and death. In fact, this person was Suffridus Petrus (1527–97), historian of Friesland, to whom Adam refers as his source at the very end of the text.35 Adam took over Canter’s life from Petrus’s De scriptoribus Frisiae (1593), adding nothing to it, but cutting certain pages and paragraphs entirely (concerning mostly family and local history), which hardly changed the message of the original, but which did make it more focused.36 Petrus knew Canter personally, and he admired him, but he was not one of his close contacts. He probably had some biographical sources on which he relied, but he also apparently based his work on the accounts of other eyewitnesses and on his own research.37

In Adam’s edition, Canter’s biography starts with an anecdote concerning the first year of his life which confirms Canter’s predisposition to learning, making it obvious to everyone from the very beginning. Allegedly, he took great delight in books while still in the arms of his nurse, and when he burst into tears, the only way to console him was to allow him to touch and turn the pages of books.38 His father, who was a schoolmaster, did everything to “cultivate this fertile ground” and not let Willem be spoiled by “womanly indulgence” by postponing his education until the age of seven, as commoners did.39 Although this suggests that Canter was educated by women at home, Adam confirms that the father started actively occupying himself with the child while he was still in the cradle, providing him learning and discipline: doctrinam disciplinamque. Eventually, he sent his son to the Utrecht public school just before Canter turned six (precisely after Easter in 1548), which was not a particularly early age for schooling in the sixteenth century and does not really confirm the notion of the father’s preoccupation with womanly corruption. At the Utrecht gymnasium, where Canter was taught by Georgius Macropedius, one of the best pedagogues and playwrights of the age, he progressed rapidly, and by the age of twelve he had learned Latin and Greek. His parents sent him to the University of Louvain, where he was tutored and looked after by another outstanding scholar, Cornelius Valerius, and where he lived in the house of a jurist for four years and then shortly in the Collegium Trilingue, learning here the basics of philological emendations.40 In both places, Canter had excellent peers, whose work animated mutual rivalry, while rivalry served as a motivation for study. This was all due to the special teaching method of Valerius, whose lectures, had they been printed, could be usefully read anywhere, although they could not be fully appreciated if one were unable to listen to his energetic and powerful voice. Valerius recognized Canter’s talents and industry, and he realized that he would never regret praising him publicly and privately. Canter was still 16 when, in 1559, he traveled to study in Paris, where he remained until August 1562. France was followed by a tour in Germany and Italy, though Canter traveled not as a tourist, but rather in order to collect ancient Greek manuscripts. Canter, we are told, also lived in Basel, where he published his first works. He then settled and lived in Leuven for eight years.

It is convenient to interrupt our presentation of Canter’s life at this point and call attention to the first signs of the constructed nature of Petrus’s biography. On the one hand, the anecdote about the baby consoled by books does not appear to be Petrus’s invention. Otherwise, he would not have called attention to the tradition of this topos in the literature of antiquity. Like in hagiographies, in which infant saints were often recognized as having a religious calling, humanist biographies often pointed out some early signs of a life of learning to come. Although these anecdotes served to enhance the credibility of the narrative, they were in fact topical. On the other hand, some details concerning Canter’s education appear to fall back on Erasmus’s De pueris instituendis. In this famous book, Erasmus actually points out the “Frisian Canter family” as a unique example of good education in the family, which naturally did not go unnoticed by the Frisian nationalist Petrus, who was very interested in questions of education.41 He alluded to this in the first pages of his biography, which Adam omitted as they concerned the history of the Canter family.42 It was probably this Erasmian reference to the advanced educational methods of the Canter family that justified Petrus’s borrowing from the De pueris instituendis. His claim that baby Willem was only consoled by books could easily go back to an anecdote of a little boy mentioned by Erasmus.43 Petrus’s affirmation that, at an early stage, Willem was taken out of an environment in which women were prominent and was looked after personally by his father is very much in line with what Erasmus advises prospective parents to do in his book. Likewise, the accent on the beneficial role of rivalry and the role of emulation in Canter’s education also appears to reflect Erasmus’s educational advice.

The presentation of Willem Canter’s education and study tours (which remain a draft only) is followed by a caesura in the biography, indicated by Canter’s eventual decisions to settle in Leuven. Some years, spent probably mostly in Basel, are silently passed over, and we are told that the further (or the last) eight years of Canter’s life took place in Leuven.44 The major part of the biography is dedicated to these uneventful years. It gives a lengthy account of Adam’s everyday life and daily routine of disciplined work and it is expressive of an unconcealed admiration for Canter’s ascetic and asexual mind. As we learn, upon his return to Leuven, Canter decided to live in rooms rented from honest landlords. Petrus was apparently embarrassed by this choice of lifestyle, so he underlines that Canter lived independently from his hosts, and he rented both a room and the servants. This was convenient, he argues, as Canter had all the advantages of the maids’ services but had no responsibility over human resources. The servants’ duties included doing Canter’s daily shopping. Once a week, they received a list of the food he wanted each day, and they had to give an account of each individual expense weekly. This way, Canter prescribed for himself a diet that was entirely in harmony with both his constitution and his studies. It was neither lowly nor luxurious; it only served to keep him in good health. “He wanted to eat in order to live, and not as many people do, to live in order to eat.”45

Canter woke up in the morning at 7 o’clock (this was relatively late, as scholars usually woke up between 4 and 5 a.m.46), as he claimed that early morning study was not for him. He worked until half past ten, when he would stop for an hour, go for a walk in the garden, or, if the weather was bad, somewhere else, contemplating the reading he had done and building an appetite for lunch.47 Meanwhile, the servants set the table. After lunch, he either continued with a light walk or had a chat with likeminded men. He then finally lay down on a settee in his study and slept for an hour. Refreshed, he went back to his studies and usually used the afternoon for writing48 until the sun set in the winter or until seven o’clock in the summer. He then took another walk, but in order to avoid wasting time, he used these late afternoon walks to tend to his affairs. Back at home, he worked until midnight, using “the remaining, or less useful hours” (horas supervacuas et minus utiles), as he “used to call” them:

 

He generally used these hours for extraordinary things. If there were something to investigate, compare, discuss, annotate in order to resolve the tasks of the following day; if he had to do something unexpectedly in addition to his daily tasks, for instance respond to letters he had received or satisfy friends who had asked some favor, or something similar, whatever it was, he assigned them all the same to these hours. When he finished these tasks, he made an account of the day for himself, and once he had diligently calculated [what he had done], he went to bed, saying long prayers and commending himself to almighty God. Of each of his activities he kept a strict account with an hourglass to the point that he set the precise amount of time [to be spent on them], to let not even nature itself put him under pressure in other ways than he himself prescribed.49

At this point, we are finally able to define one of the sources on which Petrus drew. A few pages later, he even names it, referring to Canter’s preface in an edition and translation of Stobaeus’s Physics. Canter remembers that the emendation of the corrupt Greek manuscript, which even lacked punctuation marks, demanded much more labor than its translation into Latin, which he performed in a few months, during the “the remaining, or less useful hours” (horis aliquot supervacuis ac minus utilibus), in altogether not more than 136 hours, if he were asked to give a precise account, si res ad calculum vocetur.50

Apparently, disciplining the mind and disciplining the body were two sides of the same coin. Having specified Canter’s disciplined use of time, Petrus goes on to give further detail on his diet. Canter, we are told, had only one proper meal a day. If he were hungry in the evening, which was rarely the case, he dipped some bread into wine. When people wondered about this strange habit, he responded that it was the result of deliberate and gradual experimentation, and one meal was just what his body needed, as “nature is satisfied with little.”51 This asceticism also implied that Canter could not accept invitations and never invited guests in order not to be bothered in his eating habits. Furthermore, he also fasted twice a year for health reasons. No wonder that Canter, as someone who was so frugal with time, was not very social and could rarely find time for friends.52 Like his father and grandfather, he had very few of them. He also completely avoided women and was embarrassed by obscenities.

The Construction of an Ideal Type: Canter, the Paragon of Hard Work

As we have seen, Canter is described by Petrus on the basis of the few facts Petrus actually knew about his life as a secular hermit and a paragon of the philosophical life. His biography was that of an ideal humanist, an extremely hardworking, learned, and civilized person who was raised and who lived in accordance with Erasmian principles. The animal that lives in every human being was in Canter completely under control: he was fully rational and disciplined. Soon before dying, he decided to move from Leuven to the north of Holland, but his decision was not prompted by emotional considerations. He simply wanted to reduce his expenses by living in a cheaper place and making greater profits off of his estates by being closer to them.53 Although his daily routine was apparently still influenced by the practices characteristic of the Christian monk, his life was that of an urban intellectual, a new version of the monk, who was singularly responsible for all his deeds to no one else but God. We are told that he was dedicated purely to self-imposed study, independently of any worldly or ecclesiastical obligations and expectations. With the excuse that his voice was weak, Canter never took up teaching at Leuven, in part because he believed he made better use of his time by writing than by teaching. He despised ecclesiastical offices, as he believed that the people who held such benefices should also work for their money and perform some religious service (altari servire).54 He quietly lived off of his patrimony, and as he was as parsimonious with money as he was with time, he was even able to set aside savings.

That Canter’s life represented an ideal type was recognized also by a late book, Nathaniel Wanley’s The Wonders of the Little World: Or, A General History of Man by (1673). Canter is remembered in Chapter 42 (“Of such Persons as were of Skill in the Tongues”) in the following way: “One says of him: ‘If any would desire a specimen of a studious person, and one who had wholly devoted himself to the advancement of learning, he may find it exactly expressed in the person of Gulielmus Canterus’.”55 The author of these words was in fact Suffridus Petrus, who began his biography with this sentence, which Adam curiously omitted, along with the rest of the first pages.

Canter was then consciously described as the archetype of the “studious person,” and he was also received as such. Another example comes from a two-distich poem by the librarian and historian of the Spanish Netherlands, Aubertus Miraeus (Aubert Le Mire), canon of the Antwerp cathedral. The poem accompanied a woodcut portrait of Canter by Philips Galle and was printed in Miraeus’s Illustrium Galliae Belgicae scriptorum icones et elogi (1604),56 a biographic and poetic album illustrated by portraits.57 Miraeus’s poem affixed to Canter’s image starts with the question: “Clepsydra quid signat,” or, “what does a clepsydra (water clock) signal?” Miraeus responded, “You used this instrument to measure [the length of] your studies, You, other Pliny,” referring to the story of Canter’s keeping a strict account of his activities with an hourglass.

It is obvious that Miraeus worked with Petrus’s biography.58 In fact, his book (which was not always sold with the portraits) also contained a short biography on Canter, which was more or less an extract from Petrus’s vita.59 Having detailed Canter’s studies and study tour, Miraeus introduces the part on Canter’s daily routine in the following manner:

 

When he returned through Germany to Leuven, he gave himself over entirely to studies so immoderately that people believed he was hastening his death. His day was divided among certain activities in a way that he studied one thing in the morning and another in the afternoon hours. Pliny the Younger writes and boasts of his Pliny [the Elder] in a similar way; however, you would call him [Pliny] idle and lazy when compared with this assiduous and indefatigable mind.60

 

Miraeus goes on to explain that Canter determined the amount of days and hours to be spent on each of his tasks. You would not believe it, he adds, had he not written about it himself in the preface to Stobaeus’s Physics.

Miraeus’s reading of Canter’s biography is a useful guide for further analysis. First, we notice the crucial function of the reference to Canter’s preface to the edition of Stobaeus. Without that testimony, Miraeus claimed, one would not believe the biographer. But did Petrus construct the entire myth of an extremely time-conscious and disciplined person based on this single source? We may well ask this question in part because Petrus, as we have seen, used the very words Canter had used in the Stobaeus-preface. Miraeus must also have become suspicious about the constructed nature of Canter’s image, which was probably confirmed by his association about Pliny the Younger’s famous letter on Pliny the Elder. Had Petrus not quoted the Stobaeus-preface, Miraeus might have stated that his entire story went back to Pliny.

In fact, Pliny’s epistle 3.5 written on Uncle Pliny must have been a well-known source of the image of an extremely time-conscious scholar;61 the key person in popularizing this letter was again Erasmus.62 In this epistle, the story of Pliny’s daily routine and frenzied time-management is directly linked to the question of how Pliny managed to be so extremely productive (in addition to having public offices and working as the emperor’s councilor). In a similar manner, Canter’s image as a uniquely hardworking scholar is constructed in relation to his exceptional philological expertise and extreme productivity, considering especially his early death (the biographer emphasizes that he had not yet turned 33 when he died).63 Unlike Canter, Pliny the Older was an early bird: his “day starts long before the crack of dawn, up in full darkness and lamplight from fall through winter, seasonally adjusted back to the dead of night; then [before daybreak] out to call on his ‘friend’ the emperor (another night creature), and other obligations, before returning home.”64 After lunch, Pliny would do book work, “featuring notes and lemmata.” This was followed by sunbathing, which he spent reading and taking notes, then a cold bath, the only moment of relaxation, since for the rest of bath time, while he was being rubbed down and toweled dry, he was again listening to or dictating a book. Then came dinner, spent with work, and more work until he retired before dark in summertime or one hour after sunset in the winter, “as though some law dictated it” (tamquam aliqua lege cogente). In brief, Canter was as much a “Time Scrooge”65 as Pliny the Elder. This is highlighted, as in Canter’s bibliography, by anecdotal details:

 

I remember one of his friends pulled up the reader when he’d mispronounced something and had it repeated: my uncle said to him, “You did understand?” When he nodded, “So why pull him up? We’ve lost ten verses plus through your interrupting.” […] I recall myself being reprimanded by him—why walk?: “You had the chance,” he said, “to waste not these hours.” You see, he reckoned all time “wasted” that was not invested in study.66

“We can measure the madness very precisely” through these anecdotes, comments Henderson, their translator. It is not difficult to think of Canter again, who used even his recreational walk to tend to business and who measured all his scholarly activities with the hourglass, not even letting “nature itself put him under pressure in other ways than he himself prescribed.” In other words, he also used the toilet in a regular, disciplined way.67

Clearly, like Pliny, Canter was a workaholic. Both worked too much. Miraeus, as we have said, must have had the same impression: “he gave himself over entirely to studies so immoderately that people believed he was hastening his death,” he commented, a remark which does not harmonize with the description of Canter’s time-management which followed these words. Apparently, despite all the efforts of the biographer to counter the plausible claim about Canter’s self-destructive work, we are not entirely convinced. In fact, Petrus’s very insistence on the healthiness of Canter’s regimen may raise further suspicion. When Canter, we are told, needed once to defend his diet in front of his friends, his healthy appearance lent credibility to his words: He was fit, or as Petrus put it, “his limbs were energetic,” his face was not pale like that of the scholar, but rather had a natural color. Not long before his death, he allegedly also told some friends that he had not been sick for nine years. However, the description of his early death (after many months of fever) prompts one to throw into question this notion of his general good health and suggests that perhaps, in the end, he worked himself to death. One of his few surviving letters, written less than four years before his death, also confirms that he had serious health issues. He complains in the letter that he abused his body with too much work, which he could no longer bear, and he therefore needed to be more health-conscious.68

If Petrus had wanted to add color to the narrative of Canter’s daily routine, it would not have been very difficult to look for more recent examples. One has good reason to assume Ficino’s De triplici vitae and Bullinger’s Studiorum ratio were among his sources.69 Ficino suggested that the scholar get up one or two hours before sunrise and start the day with some delicate massage of the body and then spend half an hour at least getting clean. The scholar should then sit down to study, but he should interrupt his work roughly every hour (for example, by combing his hair 40 times). Concentration needs interruptions, otherwise it is tiring and unhealthy. Lunch should be at noon, but one could also postpone it to as late as 2 o’clock. While morning study should be spent inventing or composing new things, the “rest of the hours” are for reading “old things” (the classics).70 Addressing his book mainly to future members of the clergy, Bullinger advises they start the day not with massage but with prayer.71 Also, Bullinger recommends waking up early in the morning (at 3 or 4 o’clock) and leaving oneself enough time to get up. One should, however, avoid waking up too early and then wasting the early afternoon snoozing. At 8 o’clock, the scholar or the churchman should take a break by straightening up and doing some necessary domestic work, and he should also take a short walk so as to have a good appetite for lunch. Wise men agree that studying after lunch is unhealthy, in particular for one’s vision, so in practice, Bullinger suggests the double break observed in Canter’s case.72 The period of digestion should be spent taking a walk in the city or engaging in some other form of bodily exercise. At 1 o’clock, the scholar can finally return to his studies and spend time with easier reads, like works of history or poetry, unlike in the morning, which should be dedicated to theology or philosophy. These are also the hours suitable for doing some writing. At 4 o’clock, it is time to get up again, do domestic work, and rekindle one’s appetite. After dinner, one should do some light reading (like Gellius, Quintilian, or Cicero), but not more than one hour, as night work causes sleeplessness and has other unwanted effects.73 Like Ficino, Bullinger also continues with advice on diet, thus serving as a model for Canter’s biographer in this respect too.

The rhetorical strategies used to construct an image of Canter as a Herculean laborer may be frequently observed in other sixteenth-century biographies. In the biography of Christophorus Longolius (Christophe de Longueil) (1490–1522), who like Canter died early (at the age of 32), the story of self-controlled hard work is less central and elaborate, but it follows similar patterns. Longolius read so much and developed such refined views in so few years and so unusually early that it seemed hardly credible to people who knew nothing about his way of life, which was typified by total self-control (temperantia summa). While others dedicated much of their time to pleasures, especially in those times, he would not waste a minute on indulgences. He would eat and drink sparingly, and he consumed only diluted wine, preferring chiefly cold food had doctors not advised him against it. He was parsimonious also with sleep, sleeping six hours at the most.74

In the same volume of philosophers, we read much the same about the life of the Greek scholar Martin Crusius (1526–1607). Crusius was also moderate both in general and in his diet, imitating nature, which is satisfied with little. Yet, intellectual work did no harm to his physical constitution; Crusius was as strong as was Longolius or Canter, but unlike Canter, he was also social. He was amusing and courteous company during work dinners, but he remained the most moderate on these occasions. As for his work regimen (studiorum ratio), both in winter and summer Crusius studied from 5 a.m. until lunch and carried on right after lunch until dinner. After dinner he continued “reading and writing letters and books” until 10 p.m. His attraction to letters was an early thing, as was true in Canter’s case. His mother allegedly noted that he wrote characters in the dust before he was even able to walk.75

In the biography of Guillaume Budé (1468–1540), a master of Longolius, written by Louis Le Roys in the year of Budé’s death, we learn that Budé worked three hours even on the day of his wedding. His only pleasure was working on the writings of ancient authors, and he never shunned relevant labor or quit work on a book in the middle. According to an anecdote, the president of the Parisian council lived in his neighborhood, but he never bumped into him in the streets and he never saw him at public feasts, when neighbors usually gathered at the entrances to their houses. He never even saw him during afternoon walks or among the men who were simply watching passersby, since Budé did not allow himself any time away from work, not even a short day off. He played neither with dice or with the ball, as most people did during holidays, but worked. After waking up in the morning, he started studying and did not stop until lunch. Before sitting down to eat, he exercised by taking a short walk. After lunch, he spent about two hours talking to people, and he then continued his studies until his late and moderate dinner, which he consumed not for pleasure but rather merely to satisfy his natural hunger.76

Conclusions

As James Weiss and Karl Enenkel have wisely stated, biographies and autobiographies are “selectively composed artifacts” which “construct and constitute people.”77 The life of Canter was one such artifact, one image of a figure who embodied disciplined hard work. In the work ethic it aimed to transmit, the accent was on both diligence and discipline. The ideal was not immoderate labor fueled by irrational passions, but work done by a disciplined rational mind. Canter’s example showed the very limits of a man’s mental productivity, to which learned men could still aspire. He did the maximum of work one could still normally perform without damaging one’s physical and mental balance.

The work ethic promoted by the biographies of learned men was a Renaissance invention influenced by both ancient (Stoic) and medieval (ascetic) models. In the hands of Renaissance men, it essentially became a secular, urban ethic of particular lay groups. From the sixteenth and especially the seventeenth century on, Calvinism (and other denominations to a lesser degree) gave further sanction to it. Among Renaissance merchants and learned men, its primary function was to legitimate social rise, forming an integral part of the ethic of virtue, which was the ruling ideology of fifteenth-century and sixteenth-century political elites.78 In the case of Canter, disciplined hard work was the symbol of selfless sacrifice made by a learned man in the interest of the advancement of learning and the furthering of a better (less passionate, more rational and civilized) society.

Bibliography

Absmeier, Christine. Das schlesische Schulwesen im Jahrhundert der Reformation ständische Bildungsreformen im Geiste Philipp Melanchthons. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2011.

Adam, Melhior. Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, qui seculo superiori et quod excurrit philosophicis ac humanioribus literis clari floruerunt. Francofurti: Impensis Jonae Rosae; [Heidelberg:] Typis Johannis Lacelloti [recte: Lancelotti], Acad. Typogr., 1615.

Adam, Melhior. Decades duae continentes vitas theologorum exterorum principum, qui Ecclesiam Christi superiori seculo propagarunt et propugnarunt. Francofurti: Sumptibus Ionae Rosae; Typis Nicolas Hoffmanni, 1618.

Adam, Melhior. Vitae Germanorum medicorum… [Frankfurt a. M.:] Hered. Jonae Rosae; Heidelberg: Johannes Georgius Geyder, Acad. Typogr., 1620.

Adam, Melhior. Vitae Germanorum iureconsultorum et politicorum… [Frankfurt a. M.:] Hered. Jonae Rosae; Heidelberg: Johannes Georgius Geyder, Acad. Typogr., 1620.

Adam, Melhior. Vitae Germanorum Theologorum qui superiori seculo Ecclesiam Christi voce scriptisque propagarunt et propugnarunt congestae et ad annum usque MDCXVIII deductae. Frankfurt [a. Main]: Jonas Rosa; Heidelberg: Johannes Georgius Geyder, Acad. Typogr., 1620.

Algazi, Gadi. “Scholars in Households: Refiguring the Learned Habitus, 1480–1550.” Science in Context 16 (2003): 9–42.

Almási, Gábor. “Educating the Christian prince for learning and peace: the cases of Archdukes Rudolf and Ernst in Spain (1564–1571)” [forthcoming article].

Almási, Gábor and Farkas G. Kiss, ed. Humanistes du bassin des Carpates II. Johannes Sambucus. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014.

Almási, Gábor and Farkas G. Kiss. “In search of Sambucus: His philology, publications and friends.” In Iohannes Sambucus / János Zsámboki / Ján Sambucus (1531-1584): Philologe, Sammler und Historiograph am Habsburgerhof, edited by Christian Gastgeber and Elisabeth Klecker, 35–126. Vienna: Praesens Verlag, 2018.

Bauch, Gustav. Valentin Trozendorf und die Goldberger Schule. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchh., 1921.

Beims, Klaus-Dieter. “Von den Grenzen einer frühneuzeitlichen Biographie: Melchior Adams Vita Helii Eobani Hessi und ihre Quellen.” Daphnis 46 (2018): 345–426.

Bullinger, Heinrich. Studiorum ratio. Vol. 1, Text und Übersetzung. Vol. 2, Einleitung, Kommentar, Register, edited by Peter Stotz. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1987.

Camerarius, Joachim. Narratio de Helio Eobano Hesso, edited by Johann Gottlieb Kreyssig. Misenae: Klinkichtius, 1843.

Canterus, Gulielmus. Novarum lectionum libri quatuor. Antwerp: Plantin, 1566.

Cureus, Joachim. Physica sive de sensibus et sensibilibus. Wittembergae: Lechmann, 1585.

Dihle, Albrecht. Studien zur griechischen Biographie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1956.

Dihle, Albrecht. “The Gospels and Greek Biography.” In The Gospel and the Gospels, edited by Peter Stuhlmacher, 361–86. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.

Enenkel, Karl A. E. Die Erfindung des Menschen: Die Autobiographik des frühneuzeitlichen Humanismus von Petrarca bis Lipsius. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008.

Enenkel, Karl A. E. “Vita als Instrument humanistischer Wissensvermittlung: Desiderius Erasmus, Beatus Rhenanus, Guillaume Budé, Louis LeRoy und Johannes Sturm.” In Die Vita als Vermittlerin von Wissenschaft und Werk, edited by idem and Claus Zittel, 11–83. Berlin: LIT, 2013.

Engammare, Max. On Time, Punctuality, and Discipline in Early Modern Calvinism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Erasmus, Desiderius. All the Familiar Colloquies, edited by N. Bailey. London: J. J. and
P. Knapton, 1733.

Erasmus, Desiderius. “De pueris instituendis” (1529), edited by Jean-Claude Margolin. In Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterdami, vol. 1.2, 21–78. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing, 1971.

Erasmus, Desiderius. Collected Works of Erasmus. Toronto: University Toronto Press, 1972-.

Ferinarius, Johannes. Narratio historica de vita et morte viri summi Ioach. Curei freistad. sil. philos. et medici. Lignicii: sumtibus A. Schultzii, 1601.

Ficino, Marsilio. Sulla vita. Introd. and trans. by Alessandra Tarabochia Canavero. Milan: Rusconi, 1995.

Fleischer, Manfred P. Späthumanismus in Schlesien: ausgewählte Aufsaätze. Munich: Delp’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1984.

Flood, John. Poets Laureate in the Holy Roman Empire: A Bio-bibliographical Handbook. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006.

Freytag, Theodor Friedrich, ed. Virorum doctorum epistolae selectae. Leipzig: Teubner, 1831.

Hallam, Henry. Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. 2. Paris: Baudry, 1839.

Hankins, James. Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2019.

Henderson, John. “Knowing Someone through their Books: Pliny on Uncle Pliny (Epistles 3.5).” Classical Philology 97 (2002): 256–84.

Keener, Craig S. Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2019.

Krause, Johann Gottlieb. “Von Melchioris Adami Vitis Eruditorum.” In idem, Umständliche Bücher-Historie, Oder Nachrichten und Urtheile, vol. 1, 87–119. Leipzig: s. n., 1715.

Lubos, Arno. Valentin Trozendorf: Ein Bild aus der schlesischen Kulturgeschichte. Ulm (Donau): Unser Weg, 1962.

Miraeus, Albertus. Elogia Belgica sive illustrium Belgi scriptorum: Qui nostra patrumque memoria, vel Ecclesiam Dei propugnarunt, vel disciplinas illustrarunt; vitae breviter commemoratae. Antverpiae: Martinius, 1609.

Muretus, M. Antonius. Epistolae, hymni sacri et poemata omnia. Coloniae: apud Antonium Hierat, 1611.

Petrus, Suffridus. De scriptoribus Frisiae decades XVL. Coloniae: Falckenburch, 1593.

Plutarchus. Opusculum de Educandis Liberis longe nunc quam hactenus unquam emendatius editum cum interpretatione et scholiis Suffridi Petri Leovardiensis. Basileae: per Ioannem Oporinum, 1561.

Regius, Ludovicus. G. Budaei viri Clarissimi vita. Parisiis: apud Ioannem Roigny, 1540.

Rivius, Johannes. De vera et salutari Ecclesiae doctrina, deque pia hominis Christiani vita, Opera Theologica omnia. Basileae: Oporinus, 1565.

Seidel, Robert. “Melchior Adams Vitae (1615–1620) und die Tradition frühneuzeitlicher Gelehrtenbiographik: Fortschritte und Grenzen eines wissenschaftlichen Paradigmas um 1600.” In Oberschlesische Dichter und Gelehrte vom Humanismus bis zum Barock, edited by Gerhard Koselleck, 179–204. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2000.

Seidel, Robert. “Die Paracelsus-Biographie von Melchior Adam (1620). Text – Übersetzung – Kommentar.” Cardanus 4 (2004): 15–45.

Seidel, Robert. “Melchior Adam.” In Frühe Neuzeit in Deutschland 1510–1620: Literaturwissenschaftliches Verfasserlexikon, edited by Wilhelm Kühlemann et al., vol 1, 26–32. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011.

Trunz, Erich. “Der deutsche Späthumanismus um 1600 als Standeskultur.” In Deutsche Barockforschung: Dokumentation einer Epoche, edited by Richard Alewyn, 147–81. Cologne–Berlin: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1965.

Weiss, James M. “The Harvest of German Humanism. Melchior Adam’s Collective Biographies as Cultural History.” In The Harvest of Humanism in Central Europe: Essays in Honor of Lewis W. Spitz, edited by Manfred P. Fleischer, 341–50. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1992.

Weiss, James M. Humanist Biography in Renaissance Italy and Reformation Germany: Friendship and Rhetoric. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.

Weber Votaw, Clyde. “The Gospels and Contemporary Biographies in the Greco-Roman World.” America Journal of Theology 19 (1915): 45–73 and 217–49.

Werle, Dirk. “Melchior Adams Gelehrtenbiographien und ihr Bezug zur Enzyklopädistik.” In Enzyklopädistik 155–1650: Typen und Transformationen von Wissensspeichern und Medialisierungen des Wissens, edited by Martin Schierbaum, 105–25. Münster: LIT, 2009.

 

1 Guglielmus Canterus, “De ratione emendandi Graecos auctores syntagma,” attached as an appendix to the third edition of his “Novae lectiones”: Canterus, Novarum lectionum. See Almási and Kiss, “In search of Sambucus,” 114–15.

2 I am referring to Erich Trunz’s research, for instance his “Der deutsche Späthumanismus.” Trunz inspired several others, see Fleischer, Späthumanismus in Schlesien, and Fleischer’s The Harvest of Humanism, which contains the first modern article about Adam by Weiss, “The Harvest of German Humanism.” On Adam’s Vitae, see also Seidel, “Melchior Adams Vitae,” idem, “Die Paracelsus-Biographie,” idem, “Melchior Adam”; Werle, “Melchior Adams Gelehrtenbiographien”; Beims, “Von den Grenzen einer frühneuzeitlichen Biographie.” I would like to thank Robert Seidel for sending me his articles on Adam.

3 Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, ):( 3r. Although Germany has always been considered his fatherland, on the next page Adam names Silesia as his dulcissima patria.

4 The lives were mostly organized chronologically according to the date of the deaths of the individuals. The volumes appeared contemporaneously in Heidelberg and Frankfurt. Note that in 1618, a volume on non-German theologians was also published. Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum; idem, Decades duae; idem, Vitae Germanorum medicorum; idem, Vitae Germanorum iureconsultorum et politicorum; idem, Vitae Germanorum Theologorum. See their digital edition on https://www2.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/adam.html#werk (accessed on September 9, 2019).

5 See note 34.

6 On the latter, see most importantly Weiss, Humanist Biography, and Enenkel, Die Erfindung des Menschen.

7 Cf. with Weber Votaw, “The Gospels and Contemporary Biographies”; Dihle, Studien zur griechischen Biographie; idem, “The Gospels and Greek Biography”; Keener, Christobiography, which also provides an overview of the genre of the in antiquity.

8 In reality, Adam was probably more influenced by his immediate forerunners, like the Icones by Nicolaus Reusner or Johannes Sambucus (who both published collective portrait albums accompanied by poems), Conrad Gesner’s Bibliotheca universalis, and Heinrich Pantaleon’s three-volume Prosopographiae heroum atque illustrium virorum totius Germaniae (1565–1566), as pointed out by Seidel, “Melchior Adams Vitae,” 186–88. The most immediate influence, however, could have been Aubertus Miraeus’s Elogia Belgica, see notes 55–57.

9 Adam, Vitae Germanorum Theologorum, ):( 4r.

10 Most importantly by Weiss, “The Harvest.”

11 Adam, Vitae Germanorum Theologorum, ):( 4r.

12 See Seidel, “Melchior Adams Vitae”; Werle, “Melchior Adams Gelehrtenbiographien”; and Beims, “Von den Grenzen.”

13 Ibid., 193, and Adam, Vitae Germanorum Theologorum, ):( 7r.

14 See also Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, ):( 2v–4v.

15 Seidel, “Melchior Adams Vitae,” 191–201.

16 See Flood, Poets Laureate, 20.

17 “Ob er gleich von schwacher Leibes-Constitution und die gantze Lebens-Zeit über sehr kränklich gewesen, so hat er doch niemals über 5. oder 6. Stunden geschlaffen, auch wohl die gantze Nacht durch, oder die Tisch-Zeit über gesessen und dasjenige abgeschrieben, was zu seinem Vorhaben gedienet.” Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. Krause, “Von Melchioris Adami Vitis Eruditorum,” 88.

18 Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 149.

19 Ibid., 152.

20 It appeared in the front of Rivius’s Opera theologica omnia: Rivius, De vera et salutari Ecclesiae doctrina.

21 Pantaleon’s book appeared just a year after Fabricius’s biography with the same publisher, Oporinus.

22 Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 167–76. On Trozendorf, see Bauch, Valentin Trozendorf; Lubos, Valentin Trozendorf; Absmeier, Das schlesische Schulwesen, 100–29.

23 See Absmeier, Das schlesische Schulwesen.

24 I have not been able to identify Adam’s sources. The funeral oration by Adam Cureus on Valentin Trozendorf, once held in the University Library of Wrocław, was unfortunately among the documents which perished during World War II because of bombings.

25 Adam, Vitae Germanorum medicorum, 197–216.

26 Ibid., 201, 203.

27 Cureus, Physica sive de sensibus et sensibilibus.

28 Ferinarius, Narratio historica.

29 Beims, “Von den Grenzen einer frühneuzeitlichen Biographie.”

30 Cf. with Beims, idem; Almási, “Educating the Christian prince.”

31 Camerarius, Narratio de Helio Eobano Hesso, 8; Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 105. Poverty, however is a key motive also in Camerarius’s text. See Beims, “Von den Grenzen einer frühneuzeitlichen Biographie,” 389, 423.

32 Adam, Vitae Germanorum medicorum, 153.

33 A surviving poem testifies to his wedding, see Flood, Poets Laureate, 20.

34 This biography is 17 pages long. Cf. with the longer lives of “philosophers” and “doctors”: Conrad Gesner had 26, Justus Lipsius 16, Johannes Crato 16, Kaspar Peucer 15, Martin Crusius 14, Johannes Rivius 13, Philip Melanchthon 13, Eobanus Hessus 13, Joachim Camerarius Jr. 13, Nicodemus Frischlin 12, Christophorus Longolius 12, Leonhard Fuchs 11, Jakob Schegk 11, Joachim Cureus 10, Paracelsus 10, Johannes Vischer 10, Valentin Trotzendorf 9, Wolfgang Meurer 9, Joachim Camerarius Sr. 8 pages.

35 Petrus, De scriptoribus Frisiae, 111–54. In the second edition (Franequerae: Jacobus Horreus, 1599), it is on pp. 189–260.

36 Adam cut the first few pages, which give a genealogy of the Canter family, mentioning also Erasmus’s reference to this famous family. (This part also serves to justify why Petrus inserted Canter’s biography in his edition on Frisian authors. Although he was born in Utrecht, the family also had Frisian branches. Coming from Leeuwarden, the grandfather had settled in Groningen, but Canter continued to have family possessions in Leeuwarden.) Adam then cut a mistaken reference to the library of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, of which Canter had once talked to Petrus, although he could not recall exactly what (p. 121). Next, a paragraph is cut on the dilemma of where to live in Leuven after his return (p. 122). Adam cut some parenthetical praise of Canter on p. 133. Pages 140–8 are cut entirely, as they do not fit. In relation to Canter’s aim to move back to Frisia, this is where Petrus engages in local history, presenting the city of Leeuwarden and his hopes concerning Canter’s arrival (which he hoped to boost in academic life in the city) and the potential foundation of a university. Cutting parts of pp. 150–1 (mentioned in the main text), Adam finally shortens Canter’s bibliography (attached to the biography) in an unfortunate manner. Here we also have another reference to the relationship between Canter and Petrus, who in Leuven received Canter’s notes, which were meant to be a contribution to Josias Simler’s Bibliotheca.

37 At the end of his biography, he lists the names of those who wrote funerary elegies on the death of Canter. He claims he would have preferred to add them to the bibliography, had he had the means to publish it independently. But since he had not had the means, he inserted Canter’s life in his book on Frisian authors. This might also suggest that the manuscript elegies had been accompanied by a biography, which Petrus elaborated.

38 Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 272. The author mentions Pindar, Plato, Vergil, and even Saint Athanasius of Alexandria as authors who themselves mentioned similar cases of a child showing early signs of great talent. Athanasius was one of the authors studied by Canter in his Variae lectiones.

39 Ibid., 272.

40 Since Canter studied for roughly four years in Leuven, it seems difficult to fit his short stay in the prestigious Collegium Trilingue here. This was probably invented because of the prestige of the institute and Canter’s later expertise in ancient languages. On the other hand, in a letter written by Cornelius Valerius after Canter’s death to Hugo Blotius, we are told that once he lived together with Canter, sharing even the same bedroom. This could have taken place after Canter’s return to Leuven, but probably it was during his years of study. “Cum litterae tuae mihi redderetur, iam agebat animam vir utriusque linguae doctissimus atque optimus artibus ornatissimus, olim mihi carissimus discipulus domestica atque adeo, si ita loqui liceat, cubiculari consuetudine coniunctissimus Gulielmus Canterus, ac triduo fere post de hac vita ad superos migravit cuius excessus mihi tristissimus accidit.” Dated May 27, 1575, Leuven. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Vindob. 9737z14–8 II f. 68. (This means that Valerius, who received Blotius’s letter on May 13, dates the death of Canter to May 16, although it happened on May 18.)

41 See his emended and annotated edition and translation of Plutarch’s The Education of Children (Plutarchus, Opusculum de Educandis Liberis), published in Basel, where Canter would soon also appear.

42 Petrus, De scriptoribus Frisiae, 112; Erasmus, “De pueris instituendis,” 52.

43 Erasmus, “De pueris instituendis,” 67.

44 There are two surviving letters by Canter dated from Frankfurt, where Canter went because of the book fairs: to Marc-Antoine Muret from the autumn fair of 1564 (Muretus, Epistolae, 78–79); to Joachim Camerarius from the autumn fair of 1567 (Freytag, Virorum doctorum epistolae, 71–73).

45 Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 276. Cf. with Bullinger, Studiorum ratio, 1:18, where the original sentence (“esse oportet ut vivas non vivere ut edas”) is quoted, which goes back to Auctor ad Herennium 4.28.39. But see also Quintilian, Inst. orat. 9.3.85 and Gellius 19.2.7, who ascribes the maxim to Socrates.

46 See Engammare, On Time, Punctuality, and Discipline, passim, and the very informative notes on the daily routines of scholars by Peter Stotz in Bullinger, Studiorum ratio, 2:54–61.

47 See how Socrates got an appetite for lunch by walking, narrated in Athenaeus of Naucratis, Deipnosophists, 4.46. Compare with Bullinger’s advice (where Socrates is similarly mentioned) in Bullinger, Studiorum ratio, 1:18.

48 This we learn only later on, see Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 280.

49 “His enim nihil ordinarium agere consueverat: sed si quid vel ad postridiani pensi absolutionem investigandum, conferendum, discutiendum, adnotandum esset, vel si quid extra diurnum pensum de improviso obiectum fuisset, puta si litteris acceptis respondendum, si petitionibus amicorum gratificandum, si quid huius generis aliud agendum esset, id quicquid esset, in has horas simul coniciebat, quo absoluto exacti diei rationes a se ipse reposcebat, iisque diligenter ad calculum revocatis fusisque precibus lectum petens, Deo optimo maximo se commendabat. Omnes autem actiones suas tam stricte ad clepsammidium reuocaverat, adeoque certis ac statutis temporum intertvallis alligarat, ut ne ipsa quidem natura aliis, quam sibi destinatis necessitatem suam flagitaret.” Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 276.

50 Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 282. Canter received the manuscript of this book from the library of the Hungarian humanist Johannes Sambucus. Cf. Almási and Kiss, Humanistes du bassin des Carpates, 199.

51 Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 277. See for this stereotype, for example, the colloquy between a soldier and a Carthusian by Erasmus, All the Familiar Colloquies, 174.

52 Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 278.

53 This part seems to argue against Petrus’s authorship.

54 Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 278.

55 Wanley refers to an unnamed source here. I am quoting from the London edition of 1806 (vol. 2), p. 370.

56 The woodcut can be found in the holdings of the Rijksmuseum or the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (available online in both places). The 1609 edition, which I used, does not contain Canter’s portrait. Miraeus, Elogia Belgica.

57 This was another collective anthology, which, unlike most of its sixteenth-century predecessors, was organized according to a new national agenda. A decade later, Canter, appropriated by the Frisian Petrus, is claimed back by the Belgian Miraeus, only to be included among Adam’s Germans one decade later.

58 Henry Hallam, a nineteenth-century author of a history of early modern literature, dedicated a page to Canter’s philology, observing that “the life of Canter in Melchior Adam is one of the best his collection contains; it seems to be copied from one by Miraeus.” Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, 19. Adam did not copy Miraeus here, but his book might have been one of the publications that prompted him to write his own work on Germans. Adam knew and used Miraeus (for example, his biography of Cornelius Valerius was based on him), but certainly neither agreed with Miraeus’s new “national” or with his Catholic perspective (Miraeus mixed religious, ecclesiastical, and professional criteria when grouping his learned men).

59 Miraeus, Elogia Belgica, 127–28.

60 “Post Lovanium per Germaniam reversus, tam immodice studiis totum se tradidit, ut mortem porperasse credatur. In certas operas diem ita partiebatur, ut alia ante meridiem, promeridianis horis alia studia tractaret. Simile de Plinio suo scribit et iactat alter Plinius; atqui ignavum et desidem illum dixeris, si cum hoc assiduo atque indefesso ingenio compares.” Ibid., 127.

61 See Henderson, “Knowing Someone through their Books”; Enenkel, “Vita als Instrument,” 55–56.

62 See Engammare, On Time, Punctuality, and Discipline, 82.

63 Another well-known classical source of disciplined time-management, as Karl Enenkel has pointed out, was Suetonius’s life of Augustus, but Pliny’s image certainly had a stronger influence on the fashioning of the image of the busy scholar. See ibid., 55; Enenkel, Die Erfindung des Menschen, 348–49.

64 I am quoting Henderson’s paraphrase, “Knowing Someone,” 266–67.

65 John Henderson’s words on Pliny, ibid., 263, translating “tanta erat parsimonia temporis.” Cf. with “parcissimus dispensator temporis” in Canter’s biography. Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 278.

66 “memini quendam ex amicis, cum lector quaedam perperam pronuntiasset, revocasse et repeti coegisse; huic avunculum meum dixisse ‘intellexeras nempe?’ cum ille adnuisset, ‘cur ergo revocabas? decem amplius versus hac tua interpellatione perdidimus’ […] repeto me correptum ab eo, cur ambularem, ‘poteras’ inquit ‘has horas non perdere.’ nam perire omne tempus arbitrabatur, quod studiis non impenderetur.” Quoted by Henderson, ibid., 261, trans. by Henderson, ibid., 263.

67 A further analogy between Pliny’s letter and Canter’s biography is the way in which Pliny the Younger extrapolated his story from a few lines of Pliny the Elder’s preface to his Natural History. See again Henderson, idem, 274–77.

68 “Verumtamen, quod recte me monent literae tuae, valetudini meae deinceps consulere cogar, quandoquidem tantam studiorum contentionem, quanta sum per annos aliquot usus, non amplius haec fert aetas, tametsi non grandis (ut quae tricesimum annum nondum attigerit) multis tamen laboribus valde iam affecta.” Letter to the physician Crato von Krafftheim of 24 August 1571. Biblioteka Uniwersytecka we Wrocławiu, R 246, no. 414.

69 See Engammare, On Time, Punctuality, and Discipline, 84–89.

70 Ficino, Sulla vita (book 1, chapter 8), 114–16.

71 Bullinger also suggests the text of the prayer for those who cannot invent one for themselves. One should ask God for wisdom, intellect, and memory (among other things) in order to understand God’s law, fear only God, and acquire real learning, with which one may be of use to God and the state. Bullinger, Studiorum ratio, 1:10.

72 Erasmus also recommends beginning to work early in the day and taking walks (though he got up late because of sleeping problems) in his “Diluculum” and “De ratione studii epistola protreptica,” in Erasmus, Collected Works, 40:916–24 and 25:192–94. See the excellent notes of Peter Stotz in Bullinger, Studiorum ratio, 2:58–59.

73 Neither Erasmus (“De ratione studii epistola protreptica,” ibid., 193) nor Ficino (Sulla vita, 115) suggests working at night. However, in the Ciceronianus, where in the person of Nosoponus Erasmus ridicules the scholar who overacts his scholarly persona, it is recommended to write “in the dead of the night.” Erasmus, Collected Works, 28:351. See Algazi, “Scholars in Households,” 30.

74 Yet, the biographer made sure not to exaggerate about Longolius’s scholarly image. He stressed that he remained interested in public matters and did not neglect bodily exercises either, playing a little with a ball every day before dinner. Adam, Vitae Germanorum philosophorum, 50–51.

75 Ibid., 492–93.

76 Regius, G. Budaei viri Clarissimi vita, 15–16. Also see Enenkel, “Vita als Instrument,” 53.

77 Weiss, “Friendship and rhetoric,” 48; Enenkel, Erfindung des Menschen, 37. Both are quoted by Beims, “Von den Grenzen einer frühneuzeitlichen Biographie,” 349–51.

78 See Hankins, Virtue Politics.

More Articles ...

  1. 2019_3_Kiss
  2. 2019_1_Szilágyi
  3. 2019_1_Paukert
  4. 2019_1_Demeter
  5. 2019_1_Gyimesi–Kehl
  6. 2019_1_Koloh
Page 21 of 49
  • Start
  • Prev
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • Next
  • End
  1. You are here:  
  2. Home
  3. Articles

IH | RCH | HAS

Copyright © 2013–2025.
All Rights Reserved.

Bootstrap is a front-end framework of Twitter, Inc. Code licensed under Apache License v2.0. Font Awesome font licensed under SIL OFL 1.1.