Volume 8 Issue 3 CONTENTS

The Codices of György Handó1

Dániel Pócs
Research Centre for the Humanities
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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

 

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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.

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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.

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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
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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.

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

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.

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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.

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Gábor Koloh
Hungarian Agricultural Museum
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Endrőd is a village in Békés County along the Körös River. A census taken by the local church administration presents the composition of 663 household from 1835. From the perspective of household structure studies, this source is unique in length, age, and complexity. Furthermore, cholera destroyed the settlement the year before and after the census was taken. The census and parish registers offer sources on which one can study the impact of the epidemic on households. The tax register from 1834/1835 allows for the classification of family heads into tax categories, so we can extend the test to the relationship between financial background and mortality rate. This multivariate analysis uses the sources and methods used in epidemic history, social history, and historical demography.

Keywords: cholera, historical demography, tax registers 1834/35, mortality and welfare, spatial patterns

While browsing the archives of the parish of Endrőd, I came across a parish family book (“register of souls”) dated 1835, the first page of which (after the cover decorated with floral patterns) bore the title Az Endrődi Hivek Összeirása 1835ik Esztendötöl Kezdve G[öndöcs] J[ózsef káplán] (“Register of the Believers of Endrőd as of 1835 A.D. [Chaplain] J[ózsef] G[öndöcs].”

Endrőd today forms part of the town of Gyomaendrőd in southeastern Hungary on the banks of the Körös River. According to András Vályi’s description, it is a “Hungarian village in Békés County, the lord of the manor is Baron Harucher, the inhabitants are Catholic, situated near Gyoma and Ötsöd, belonging to the estate of Gyula, its arable lands are mostly good, meadows similarly, pasture is suitable for cattle of several herds, though some parts of its arable lands are flooded and some parts are nitrous, few woods and reeds, mill is negligible, marketplace is second-class due to its distance.”1 It would require a separate analysis to determine what Vályi meant precisely by “Hungarian village.” In fact, Johann Georg Harruckern, council member of the Hofkammer (the Exchequer of the Habsburg Empire), who received the settlement as part of the estate of Gyula, settled Hungarians and Slavs here in the 1720s and 1730s, mainly from the north of the Kingdom of Hungary, but following the initial period, during the work of parish priest Sámuel Pálfy (1772–1780), celebration of the mass in Slavic languages stopped,2 and as Elek Fényes put it in the mid-nineteenth century, “Slovaks also came, but they have now become entirely monolingual Hungarian.”3 In Fényes’s description, the arable lands are not only “mostly good,” but “they have such fertile, black clay soil mixed with sand that its winter wheat produces 15 seeds and its spring wheat produces 20.”4 Almost all (according to Fényes, 98 percent) of the inhabitants were Roman Catholic. The lord of the manor in the period under examination was baron Flórián Drechsel’s wife, Countess Karolina Stockhammer of the naturalized Stockhammer family.5 Regarding its geographical location, the village is a blank spot for analyses from the perspective of household structure, historical demography, or a deeper social history; only local ethnographic research has produced some serious results.6

The scholarship on household structure is “confusingly rich,”7 so I can present here only a very brief overview. In his book Property, Production, and Family in Neckarhausen 1700–1870, which was published in 1990, David Warren Sabean outlined the following evolution of household structure research: he named Frédéric Le Play and Wilhelm Riehl as the prominent representatives of the first generation of researchers in the field.8 Although the closely related Hungarian literature considers Le Play a sociologist, Sabean emphasizes the ethnographic character (Volskunde) of the research and conclusions of the first generation, where Le Play and Riehl saw the original patriarchal structure of the family9 as a continuous and functional whole with a head and dependent members.10 Le Play defined the stem family (famille-souche, when a married child remains in the parents’ household) and Riehl the enclosed household estate11 (das ganze Haus) as transformations of this patriarchal structure. According to Le Play’s concept, the parent couple lived together with one of their children and his or her family, while the others left the household.12 Sabean regards Karl Bücher as a member of the second generation of researchers. According to Bücher, the basis of the functioning of a household is production and consumption, producing for its own needs, and the family members do not participate in the production of goods. Like Bücher, Alekxander Chayanov, in his analysis of Russian peasant society, also saw the key to the functioning of the household in the close interrelationship of production and consumption.13 The third approach was built on these concepts. It originated in the study of historical demography, mainly in the work of Peter Laslett, who by that time had serious doubts as to the reliability of the widely known concept formulated by Le Play.14

Laslett questioned the “statements regarding the average size and structure of pre-industrial families and households and the historical change they allegedly underwent.”15 He objected to the fact that, although it had not become an exclusively accepted concept (research by Marion Levy explicitly refuted this hypothesis), it still was a recurrent “stereotype to talk about structures consisting of 30–40 members and three to ten families. When, however, historians analyzed the totality of households of a settlement or estate on the basis of surviving census records, it turned out that in reality, most peasant households were significantly smaller than this.”16 Laslett et al. conducted research covering England and northwestern Europe in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, which revealed a generally higher rate of nuclear families. Deviating results were found in analyses of family structures in the Balkans, where larger, more complex households occurred relatively often.17 The concept of patriarchal (married sons living in the same household with the parents) and stem family cohabitation was thus refuted, facilitating an understanding of the profound economic and social (including demographic) processes taking place in the nineteenth century. At the same time, Laslett’s typology of household structures and John Hajnal’s typology18 (its excessive complexities notwithstanding) also highlighted the relevance of cultural differences and the composition of the community, even if the acceptance of the role of the latter has now been overshadowed.19 The greatest difficulty faced in the research, hence, lies not in the various concepts, hypotheses, and further research prospects, but rather the lack of usable, reliable, and in particular dynamic sources. Although it is true that a dynamic analysis of the evolution of households would and could be more practical for the purpose of understanding the quality of cohabitation and also more meaningful than the mere exploration of regional samples, unfortunately these kinds of analyses can only be done in exceptional cases. Albeit Chaplain Göndöcs also started the parish family book with high hopes in 1835, by 1836 he mostly had recorded only the births up until that time and the information concerning those who had died of cholera (and not even everyone who belonged to this latter group!), and by 1837 only a small number of new or corrected entries had been added, and none were added in 1838. The national census of 1869 is the nearest in time to this period, but its record sheets have not survived from Endrőd (Mezőberény is the only settlement in the county for which the records survived).20

But this is just, so to speak, one of the basic problems regarding the analysis of households. The relevant literature has been discussing the problems of the term “household” for a long time. Gyula Benda used a succinct and witty definition, so it is worth quoting it in its entirety: “The household, i.e. basically a group people living under the same roof and of the same bread, is both an economic and social basic unit before industrialization. In the case of family estates, which were still dominant in the Early Modern period (whether agricultural or artisan in nature), the unit of production (and thus taxation) is also this cohabiting group. The family and the household are also the basal cell of accumulating and transferring wealth—their characteristics are closely related to the systems of inheritance. Finally, it is also a unit of consumption, everyday life is organized in its context.”21 Tamás Faragó, comparing the definition of the household with the definition of the family, wrote that the “household is different from the family both in its concept, content, organization, and system of activities, particularly in the pre-industrial era. Its members are bound by kinship (consanguinity, affinity, or fictive kinship) and by legal relationships (e.g. servants) and functional ties. Its core is usually but not necessarily a family.”22 Understanding and using the term becomes more difficult when it becomes apparent that households have various structures and different sizes even within individual settlements. In such cases, according to Benda, different models are developed which attempt either to present the different variations in their entirety or to present the shades of the various types through in-depth qualitative research, both on the international and domestic levels.23 The interpretation of the function of the households poses another set of problems. More than half a century ago, József Tamásy regarded them as mere economic communities, while Faragó emphasizes that the household group creates the necessary living conditions and ensures the socialization of new members, providing a material and mental “home space.”24 The more recent research of Péter Őri and Levente Pakot highlights the demographic and economic roles of the household, which are easier to grasp in quantitative terms.25

Tamásy highlighted the cohabitation of Croatian extended families in the eighteenth-century Kingdom of Hungary, where the average number of people in one household was over eight, while in Transylvania, Transdanubia, the Great Hungarian Plain, and the northern region of the country not many more than five people lived in the same household (with only minor differences in the different regions).26 Later domestic macroanalyses confirmed the proportion of households with an average of more than five people from the second half of the eighteenth century to the first decades of the nineteenth. Although the nuclear household could still be regarded as the dominant type, “the proportion of complex (extended and multiple-family) households was not insignificant, and at least in some areas, the majority of the population lived in such types of households type in one or another stage of their lives (...).”27 Furthermore, it is important to note that “households with a great number of people and a complex structure occurred primarily among serf peasantry, and only very rarely among landless layers of society.”28 Even though Faragó emphasizes the lack of sources, he did demonstrate the dynamic transformation of the household structure in the period of more than half a century in question. He concludes that in order to avoid the fragmentation of estates, becoming a landless serf (zsellér), or impoverishment, the proportion of complex households increased between 1787 and 1828, but at the same time, the household structures of different villages show various differences on a regional and ethno-cultural level.29 Micro research both confirmed the above conclusions and may have also refined them with restrictions to local circumstances. Such research includes the study conducted by Andorka and Sándor Balázs-Kovács in Sárpilis, where they repeated the above with respect to the size and composition of the households. Faragó broke down his data according to social strata in his examples from Pest county, but his micro findings verify the nationwide conclusions. The study by Magdolna Balázs and László Katus focusing on Central Transdanubia emphasizes the similarity with the Balkan and eastern household structure, while Gyula Benda’s analysis in Keszthely also establishes the dominance of the nuclear family and the more complex structures observed among farmers, serfs and merchants. Thanks to her sources, Ildikó Husz was able to perform an in-depth analysis of the households of Zsámbék in their dynamics, and she confirmed Faragó’s conclusion regarding the temporary increase in households of a more complex composition, similarly to Balázs Heilig’s analysis in Szőlősardó.30

My source, in the absence of any reference to a higher order, is a “church register of souls,” or a status animarum.31 In the source, the households are not distinguished from one another consistently, which also reinforces the foregoing. At the beginning of the family book, the relationships to the head of the household are accurately described, and later the indication of relations perceived as unambiguous (i.e. children) is omitted. In the second half of the book, even the status of alien persons (mainly servants) is often omitted. The heading of the family book is the following: Háznak a’ száma, Vezeték és Kereszt Nevek, Sorsa, Kora (Eszt., Holn., Nap), Egy Házi Család Száma, Idegen Vallásúak, Észrevételek, or House Number, Family and Given Names, Fate, Age (Year, Month, Day), Number of People in the Household, Foreign Faith, Comments. As regards people who belonged to a so-called foreign faith, József Göndöcs recorded their number but failed to provide more details. Taking house number 9 as an example, we can first see the name of Mihály Bentsik (Fate: Landowner farmer), followed by his wife and daughters, then a female servant. Without any separation, the records continue with György Vaszkó (Fate: tenant) with his wife, daughter, and siblings. This row is then closed by a horizontal line, the Number of People in the Household is 10, then István Bálint (Fate: in the great vineyard) with his wife and two children. The family number thus increases to 14 people. As far as I know, there were no close family relations between Mihály Bentsik and György Vaszkó, but still, the two family heads were not separated from each other in the family book. In another example, in the case of house number 96, tenant Imre Fülöpp starts the row, followed by his wife, then Mihály Denitska, furrier, tenant, and his wife and daughter. The row is separated by a line from István Farkas (Fate: in the great vineyard), his wife, and son. Then, another line separates them from György Batsa, homeowner farmer, and his family, who should have been in the first place according to the generally applied logic of the family book.

If one compares the values of the earlier censuses and our source, although the number of households would probably have approximated the previous values if I had calculated the number of households along the lines drawn by the chaplain, due to the inconsistencies indicated above, it seemed more practical to apply the considerations of Őri and Pakot. While processing and coding the data, I considered one household where even though several family nuclei lived together, it was clear that they were close relatives, and I distinguished them from those in which, though not separated by a line, the tenants, gardeners, servants, and other employees were not relatives, but had a family.32 According to this method, a total of 960 households could be unambiguously distinguished.

 

Table 2. Average size of households and the number of married men per household, Endrőd, 1835

De facto population	Number of married men	Number of households	Average size of households	Number of married men per household
5,527	1,109	960	5.75	0.92

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL

The average size of households in 1835 does not indicate a cardinal deviation from the value of slightly more than five, which is treated as average in the literature. Therefore, the values of Endrőd correspond to the national average, so they (including the number of married men per household) can be considered representative values.

I used the Laslett–Hammel typology to classify the households in which (as seen from Table 3) 65 percent were nuclear households, which fits well in the series of literature refuting the theory of the dominance of stem families. According to the source, in addition to then 25-year-old homeowner farmer, Mátyás Juhász, who was in the lower category of taxpayers with his tax of 3 forints and 5 kreutzer, three widows lived alone: Mrs. István Palócz aged above seventy, Mrs. Mátyás Roncsek nearing her fortieth year of age (Widow Landowner), and Mrs. Mátyás Tímár (aged 22) spent their year of mourning in the period of the family book (October/November 1835).33 Those living in households with no family included János Lábos, the parish priest of Endrőd between 1825 and 1840, the Curator of the Church (caretaker) József Szölösy, and the unmarried manservants working at the slaughterhouse. Lábos’s household included the author of the source, the 28-year-old chaplain József Göndöcs, as well as chaplain János Piringer, the priest’s sister, and two servants. I considered “unclassifiable” the House of the Lord of the Manor, the House of the Village, and the Arany Patkó lodging house, which Göndöcs records as a separate house, even though he also notes that its tenants have been recorded under house no. 2. In the case of another two houses, albeit the Tenants themselves are known, the source only comments on the others that “at this house live a total of ununited Vlachs: 7.” In these cases, the relationships were impossible to explore.

The rate of 19.7 percent of households with multiple families is nearest to the 1808 value of Tiszacsege (18.4 percent), so corresponding to the classification of Faragó with the help of the Laslett–Hammel system, it constituted a temporary group.34 This is worth noting because for Faragó’s group, this temporary nature can be demonstrated in both Calvinist and Roman Catholic settlements, as well as in both Hungarian-speaking and Slovak-speaking settlements, and in this regard, Endrőd has all these attributes. It was predominantly Catholic but with a significant proportion of neighboring Calvinist settlements; it was Hungarian but part of the population was of Slavic origin. The average size of households (obviously) increased with the complexity of the households, and in comparison with the 1869 value, the values of Endrőd (apart from nuclear households) are on average higher by one person.35

 

Table 4. Breakdown of households according to the gender and age of the household head, Endrőd, 1835

	Age groups							Total
	<25	25–34	35–44	45–54	55–64	64<	no data	N	( percent)
Male	66	218	225	174	136	56	3	878	91.5
Female	4	15	13	18	20	7	2	79	8.2
No data	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	3	0.3
Total	70	233	238	192	156	63	8	960	100.0

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL

If we look at the distribution of household heads according to gender, the dominance of male household heads is apparent. Men aged between 25 and 44 constituted the main body. More than half of all the men belonged to this age group, while this ratio is only 6.4 percent in the case of men above 64. However, only rarely were older men living in the family not the head of the household as well: in all seven such cases, the man (whether he was the household head’s father or other) was 70 years old or older. In the case of women, a greater number in the older age group of 45–64 became household heads upon becoming widows. The age of non-head cohabiting elder women was 65 or higher.

 

Table 5. Households according to the household head’s gender and the main categories of household structure, Endrőd, 1835

	Household type							Total
	1	2	3	4	5	6	No data	N	percent
Male	0.1	0.7	66.1	13.1	19.9	0.1	0.0	878	91.5
Female	3.8	1.3	55.7	20.3	17.7	1.3	0.0	79	8.2
Total	0.5	0.9	65.3	14.1	20.2	0.8	0.0	957	99.7

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL

The correlations between the household types and the household head’s gender are shown by the percentages in table 4. These indicate that higher rates of men are heads of nuclear and multiple-family households, while women have greater proportions in the other variations. The situation of female household heads belonging to the first type has been discussed above. Households with no family show higher values for women only because of the proportions: this is actually one woman, 23-year-old Ágnes Goda, who lived in a household with her siblings. In the case of households with complex families, we can speak about households in which widows lived together with one or more of their married children and the widow did not transfer the household headship to one of her children. This was the case for Mrs. András Cz. Tóth, the widow of a landowner farmer, who paid taxes on nine acres of arable land, 5.5 acres of meadow and 1.5 acres of vineyard and lived together with her two sons, András (25) and István (20) and their wives and children. Accordingly, the conclusions deriving from the values in the table correspond to the findings of the MOSAIC project.36

 

Table 6. Household structure according to the age groups of male household heads, Endrőd, 1835

Household category	Age groups						N
	<25	25–34	35–44	45–54	55–64	64<
1. Solitaries	0.0	0.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1
2. No family	4.5	0.5	0.0	0.6	0.7	0.0	0.7
3. Nuclear	71.2	75.2	81.8	64.4	41.9	23.2	65.9
4. Extended	19.7	18.3	8.0	9.8	11.8	19.6	13.1
5. Multiple	4.5	5.5	10.2	25.3	45.6	55.4	20.0
6. Unclassifiable	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.8	0.1
Total ( percent)	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N	66	218	225	174	136	56	875

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL

The conclusions suggested by the values contained in table 6 also correspond to national trends. Male household heads under 54 years of age dominate in the case of nuclear households, while men in higher age groups are heads of multiple-family households. Those who became household heads young either became heads upon getting married and leaving the parents’ home or inherited the household after their parents had died. They most often were the heads of nuclear households. Less often, if they were not yet married, they lived alone or maybe with other unmarried persons.”37 Aging men, however, lived together with their married child(ren) and their families in increasing proportions.

 

Table 7. Household structure according to the age groups of female household heads, Endrőd, 1835

Household category	Age groups						N
	<25	25–34	35–44	45–54	55–64	64<
1. Solitaries	25.0	0.0	7.7	0.0	0.0	14.3	3.9
2. No family	25.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.3
3. Nuclear	50.0	100.0	69.2	44.4	45.0	14.3	57.1
4. Extended	0.0	0.0	15.4	22.2	40.0	14.3	19.5
5. Multiple	0.0	0.0	7.7	33.3	15.0	57.1	18.2
6. Unclassifiable	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Total (percent)	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N	4	15	13	18	20	7	77

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL

 

In accordance with the above, the ratio of female household heads was continuously shifting from the nuclear to the complex household structure over time. In the latter cases, typically the widowed mothers were the heads of the households, so they continued to manage the household after their husbands deaths. The dynamics of change according to age groups can be seen in the case of both the male and female household heads. In Endrőd, too, younger household heads typically managed the simple (nuclear) households, while elders managed the complex households. It was less typical but did occur occasionally that the aged household head passed the management of the household on to one of his or her children.

For the analysis of the distribution of household structures according to social (specifically, social, occupational, and ethnic) strata, I followed the category system derived from the source, with minor simplifications. This resulted in a total of nine social strata (groups). I analyzed the Roma separately, although they primarily belonged to the landless serf (zsellér) or farmhand (béres) categories.

 

Table 8. Household structures according to the social / occupational situation of the household heads, Endrőd, 1835

Household category	intellectuals	landowner farmers	artisans	small traders	homeowner landless serfs	landless serfs without own home	gardeners	farmhands	Roma	no data	Total
1. Solitaries	0.0	0.3	0.0	0.0	1.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	4
2. No family	42.9	0.3	1.7	0.0	0.0	0.5	0.0	11.1	0.0	0.0	7
3. Nuclear	28.6	38.1	88.3	100.0	62.8	93.0	84.2	88.9	63.6	33.3	624
4. Extended	28.6	17.2	6.7	0.0	19.2	5.6	7.9	0.0	18.2	22.2	131
5. Multiple	0.0	44.0	3.3	0.0	16.9	0.0	7.9	0.0	18.2	11.1	189
6. Unclassifiable	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.9	0.0	0.0	0.0	33.3	5
Total (percent)	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N	7	302	60	5	266	215	76	9	11	9	960

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL

The results of Table 8 reflect the findings of previous microanalyses and macroanalyses. Typically farming serfs (or “farmers” to use the term used in the source) lived in this era in multiple-family households in larger proportions, although I should note that their majority in comparison with nuclear households is only relative. For intellectuals, living in households with no family (as seen from the examples above) was characteristic of the lifestyle arising from the nature of their occupations. Local intellectuals were not connected to the local society as regards their family relations. They formed a passing stratum, so to speak: the tenants of the parish house, including the parish priest and the chaplains, were replaced over time, and they typically did not integrate into the local society from the perspective of their family relations. While approximately 36 percent of homeowner landless serfs and Roma lived in more complex households, the ratio was much lower or zero for the others.

The distribution can be refined by performing the above classification also based on the data of the tax census of 1834–1835. Albeit there seemed to be several ways to classify tax censuses, all of them require a more comprehensive processing work encompassing multiple sources, which is currently not possible. Relying on the correlations of production volumes and the amount of taxes paid,38 I evaluated the first nine, then the subsequent one hundred, two hundred and the other taxpayers based on tax values.

By connecting the tax censuses and the household heads, I managed to achieve a two-thirds identification rate. There are some taxpayers in the censuses from Csejt-puszta: administratively, they belonged to Endrőd at this time, but Göndöcs did not record them in his parish family book. The identification was made quite difficult by the fact that in the case of some family names that are very common locally, it was impossible to identify the correct persons without a full analysis of the registers: Hornoks, Tímárs, and Uhrins lived in the settlement in great numbers, and even if the taxpayer was distinguished by an indication of the father’s given name, this was not always adequate to remove all the doubts.

 

Table 9. Household structures according to the taxation category of the household heads, Endrőd, 1835

Household category	Taxpayer’s serial number (tax amount)
	1–9 (136–295)	10–99 (40–118)	100–199 (19–40)	200–299 (11–19)	300–399 (6–11)	400–499 (2–6)	500–539 (0.1–2)	Total
1. Solitaries	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.7	0.0	4
2. No family	0.0	0.0	1.2	0.0	1.1	0.0	0.0	7
3. Nuclear	25.0	31.6	42.7	56.0	63.6	70.5	76.8	624
4. Extended	0.0	12.3	9.8	15.5	15.9	13.0	8.6	131
5. Multiple	75.0	56.1	46.3	28.6	19.3	14.4	14.6	189
6. Unclassifiable	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.4	0.0	5
Total (percent)	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	960
N	8	57	82	84	88	146	151	616

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL; MNL BéML IV. A. 6. 1834–1835.

It should be noted for the interpretation of Table 9 that the taxpayers’ serial number was the same in the case of equal tax amounts, and that is why each group of hundreds could contain more than one hundred taxpayers. However, due to the two-thirds identification rate indicated above, I was not able to include everyone in my analysis. The value of the tax amount was determined by converting the kreutzer to forints and adding it to the forint value. The table indicates that the biggest taxpayers lived in multiple-family households in an outstandingly large proportion (75 percent), but the majority of household heads belonging to the first hundred taxpayer classes also lived and farmed in this form of cohabitation. István Hanyecz paid the most taxes in the tax year of 1834–1835: 237 Forints and 38 kreutzer. He is followed by military officer Imre Mészáros, then Mihály Gubucz. Hanyecz lived together with his wife, two sons, and daughters-in-law, as well as his grandchildren, his sibling, and their family, as well as a 16-year old servant boy. Imre Mészáros lived with his wife, children, and the family of one of his sons, as well as one manservant and one female servant. Mihály Gubucz lived and farmed together with his two sons and their families.

All taxpayers in the first tax class are landowners, while the second class also includes a gardener, Imre Vaszkó, and a homeowner landless serf (zsellér), Imre Farkas. Both lived in nuclear households. The number of landless taxpayers increases in the third class, there is a growing number of homeowner landless serfs and also artisans. So, in fact, the tax census indicates that a direct proportionality can be identified among those living from agriculture between the extent of their farming activity and living in households of complex families.

 

Table 10. The proportion of households employing external labor according to household structure categories, Endrőd, 1835

	Household structure categories
	1	2	3	4	5	6	Total
Households employing external labor ( percent)	0.0	57.1	15.9	27.5	34.4	0.0	21.3
N (total households)	4	7	624	131	189	5	960

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL

Households often employed external laborers for a shorter or longer period of time. Upon examining the household categories with families, one sees that the proportion of the households employing external labor increased together with the complexity of the household. These laborers, in most of the cases, were male or female servants. Gáspár Czinger, the town clerk, had two Lutheran housekeepers (though he belonged to a household with no families, while being in the second tax category), while the nobleman and cantor Károly Balla, who lived with his wife, son, and mother, had not only a female servant but also a coachman. The average age of manservants was 17. That of the female servants was 15.

 

Table 11. Ratio of average household size and households employing external laborers according to the household head’s age, Endrőd, 1835

	Household head’s age
	<25	25–34	35–44	45–54	55–64	64<
External laborer	15.7	19.7	20.2	19.3	22.4	38.1
General size of household	1.0	4.3	4.8	6.2	9.0	1.2

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL

Table 11 indicates that as the household head’s age increased, external laborers became increasingly involved in the management of the household. The higher percentages appearing in the older age groups suggest that aging household heads tried to replace the younger members of the family having left the household this way.

Regarding the year 1836, Historia Domus of Endrőd recorded the conditions according to which Kornélia Stockhammer leased her estates in Endrőd to the village, as well as (and especially) the assets the church purchased. It also noted that Mátyás Habdza had a wooden cross erected on the outskirts of Endrőd, for which he established a foundation of 50 Forints.39 Homeowner landless serf Mátyás Habdza died in July 1836, aged 75 according to the registers and 80 according to chaplain Göndöcs. The cause of death was senectus, which could be translated today as old age.40 Whether it was he who had the cross erected as a form of thanksgiving for his long life (particular for the era) or his son Mátyás (if one accepts that middle-aged Mátyás Habdza was the son of the deceased, Göndöcs’s error would be quite a big deviation, almost 10 years!) is impossible to determine based on this information: the Historia Domus did not record the month and the day. Either way, according to contemporary popular belief, erecting a cross could be justified by the fact that cholera, which had ravaged in Endrőd in the summer of 1836, had spared Mátyás Habdza’s household.41

Göndöcs made, among others, the following entries at the end of the book: Approx. 200 died in the Year 1831 A.D. in Cholera, and a little below that: in (Year) 1836 A.D. Again approx. 100 died of Cholera. As I have mentioned, Göndöcs completed the family book with, among others, the names of those died in the 1836 cholera outbreak in the following year. Comparing this with the entries of the death register, 75 people died between July 6 and August 21, 1836. In the parish family book, Göndöcs added cholera as the cause of death subsequently for 60 people. Collating the people’s data found in the register and the family book, Göndöcs indicated that a person died of cholera in 10 cases where this is not indicated in the register, and the register mentions cholera as the cause of death in a further 26 cases where it is not added to the family book. This means that a total of 86 people are known to have died of cholera, of whom 71 could be connected to the household register.

 

Table 12. Ratio of households with a member who died of cholera according to household structure categories, Endrőd, 1835

	Nuclear	Extended	Multiple	Total
Households with a member who died of cholera (percent)	4.8	6.9	10.1	6.1
N (total households)	624	131	189	944

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835, Register of Deaths of Endrőd, 1835–1836. GySzIPL

 

Our sample makes it possible to compare the ratio of households with a member who died of cholera and the composition of the households. Cohabitation, which meant frequent contact among multiple people, constituted a higher risk factor for the spread of diseases, as reflected by the values of Table 12. Those who died of cholera in the families were in larger proportions women (54.7 percent) than men (46.3 percent). A significant group of the deceased included those aged 1–3 and 45–65.

In this paper, I conducted a closer examination of a geographical area hitherto unexplored in terms of household structure analyses, namely the settlement of Endrőd in Békés County. It was useful to process the previously dormant parish family book to get a better understanding not only of the geographical space, but also of the period after 1828. I was able to use a complete source which is rather rare from the 1830s, or even the immediately preceding or subsequent decades, which could be used well both in terms of the richness and (with some reservations) the quality of the data. In summary, the results correspond nicely to the findings of earlier macroanalyses and microanalyses, and therefore the main conclusions can be extended to this region. My findings confirm the dominance of nuclear households. However, I was able to point out that due to the relatively higher proportion of complex households, the village has an interim character, so we may have managed to record a state in the ongoing process of the simplification of households. We can regard as a characteristic specific to this settlement that older household heads employed an external person in significantly larger proportions than the younger generations, which can be explained by the departure of the younger members of the family and thus can also be interpreted as a manifestation of disintegration. Furthermore, the analysis according to tax classes refines the uniform belief that typically peasant families lived in multiple-family household structures. The ratio of this type is much higher where the household head paid more taxes. The health risk arising from the cohabitation of multiple people is also worth noting, the real threat of which is reflected by the relevant difference in the number of deaths from cholera in each household structure.

Archival Sources

Békés County Archives of the Hungarian National Archives (MNL BéML)

IV. A. 6.: Békés vármegye adószedőjének iratai [Documents of the Tax Collector of Békés County] 1834–1835. Accesed on September 25, 2018. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/435710?availability=Family percent20History percent20Library

V. B. 326. d.: Mezőberény nagyközség iratai [Documents of the Village of Mezőberény]. Census doc. 1869.

Archives of the Szent Imre Parish of Gyomaendrőd (GySzIPL)

Endrőd, Register of Deaths. Accessed on September 25, 2018

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0ByjN02LbwH6sb2FNdlg0NWFmdm8? usp=sharing

Believers of Endrőd 1835: Az Endrődi Hivek Összeirása 1835ik Esztendötöl Kezdve G[öndöcs] J[ózsef káplán] (Register of the Believers of Endrőd as of 1835 A.D. [Chaplain] J[ózsef] G[öndöcs]).

Historia Domus: Historia Ecclesiae, et Parochiae Endrődinensis conscriptu Anno 1833.

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Table 1. Number of houses and households in Endrőd (1787–1835)

	1787	1817	1828	1828–1829	1830–1831	1835
	Census	census	national census	census	taxation-related census	parish family book
Houses	388	607	705	664	640	665
Households	504	862	780	821	688	960
General size of household	5.38	5.54	–	8.13	–	5.75
Total number of inhabitants	2,712	4,779	–	5,401	–	5,527

Source: Erdei, Békés megye, 113; Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL

 

Table 3. Household structure according to main household categories, average size of households, Endrőd, 1835

Types	Households		Population		Average size of households
	N	percent	N	percent
1. Solitaries	4	0.4	4	0.1	1.0
2. No family	7	0.7	30	0.5	4.3
3. Nuclear	624	65.0	2,979	53.9	4.8
4. Extended	131	13.6	810	14.7	6.2
5. Multiple	189	19.7	1,698	30.7	9.0
6. Unclassifiable	5	0.5	6	0.1	1.2
Total	960	100.0	5,527	100.0	5.6

Source: Believers of Endrőd 1835. GySzIPL

A Spatial Analysis of the Socio-economic Structure of Bonyhád Based on the Census of 1869*

Réka Gyimesi and Dániel Kehl
University of Pécs, Faculty of Humanities
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In this study, we examine the social structure of Bonyhád, a multi-ethnical and multi-confessional Transdanubian town in Tolna County. We analyze the individual level data of the census of 1869 and offer a visual rendering of the results on a historical map of the town. The surviving material of this inventory covers the entire population of Bonyhád, providing a detailed picture about 6,036 inhabitants. Records include the names, sex, birth year and place, marital status, occupation and occupational status, literacy, residence, and whether the person in question was present or absent at the time the census was taken. As in Tolna County a cadastral survey was finished in 1866, a contemporary cadastral map is also available. Combined, these sources provide rich information about the spatial structure of the town, because the coordinates are also available using the mapire.eu website, which is overlaid on the OpenStreetMap and the HERE satellite base map. One can use the degrees of longitude and latitude of each household and study the census and the map together in R, a free software environment for statistical computation and graphics.

Bonyhád was the economic center of a small region and had a position of strategic importance in the control of local trade routes. After the end of the period of Ottoman occupation, German settlers arrived and lived alongside the original Hungarian and Serb population. Later, a significant Jewish community settled in the area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The denominational composition of the population, according to the census of 1869, was 41 percent Roman Catholics, 31 percent Lutherans, 5 percent Calvinist and 23 percent Jewish. The analysis of the census-based information and the visual rendering of the results on the cadastral map explain valuable details about the socio-economic structure of Bonyhád, including the question of segregation, which would be difficult to demonstrate on the basis of qualitative sources, as is typically the case with historical research.

Keywords: socio-economic structure, spatial pattern, R software, segregation, nineteenth c. censuses

Introduction

Bonyhád acquired central functions in the Völgység, which can be described as an agricultural region in Tolna County. The settlement started to develop dynamically in the eighteenth century due to its role as a “geographical gate.” A trade route led through it, and two bridges made it possible for travelers to cross the valley. According to the secondary literature on the local history of the area, this increasingly urbanized town evolved into an industrial-commercial center, which became a market town in 1782 with the right to hold four fairs per year. In the 1850s, Bonyhád turned into the administrative center of the executive unit, called Völgység (which essentially means valley region).1 In the work of Vera Bácskai and Lajos Nagy on the urban structure of Hungary, Bonyhád was introduced as a settlement with local significance. Its fairs were mainly visited by its own inhabitants, as they did not attract people from a larger range.2 This essay also emphasizes the role of local merchants in arranging trade through Tolna County.3

After the Ottoman Era, the town was inhabited by Calvinist Hungarians and Orthodox Serbs, but a few years later, the settlement was considered uninhabited territory. Large-scale German settlement started in the early eighteenth century. It enjoyed the support of the state and the secular and clerical landowners, who sought to repopulate their lands. As a result of this process, Bonyhád evolved into a town with a Roman Catholic German majority.4 While in 1715, records indicate only seven Hungarian and nine Serb families were counted, in 1728 42 Hungarian and 15 German families were paying taxes, and in 1748, these figures had shifted to 11 Hungarian and 29 German families.5 Until the middle of the following century, the number of inhabitants steadily increased. In 1785, there were 2,999 people living in Bonyhád. By 1828, this number had risen to 4,639, and the census in 1850 indicated 6,524 inhabitants and the one in 1857 indicated 6,371.6

The German settlers were not all Roman Catholic. A large number of Lutherans also arrived. German Calvinists from Hessen settled in Bonyhád as they did in other towns in Tolna County, but they mostly assimilated into the Lutheran majority.7 Hungarians were Roman Catholics and Calvinists. In the eighteenth century, the settlement of Jews in the town began, a process which peaked in the 1780s, when there were more than 400 Jewish inhabitants in Bonyhád.8 As a result of the abovementioned denominational mix, five denominations and four churches were found in Bonyhád in the period in question. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, alongside the Roman Catholics, Calvinists and Lutherans were also building churches in the town, and a synagogue was also constructed.9

Sources and Methods

The analysis was based on the individual sheets of census 1869,10 which contain data concerning people living together in the same households. The fact that this source is even extant is exceptional, as the original individual sheets survived only in the case of a few settlements of present-day Hungary.11 Bonyhád offered a good research opportunity given the survival of these sources, and the population was heterogeneous from the religious and socio-economic perspective.

In our analysis, we examined and combined housing statistics and individual level data of inhabitants from the census material and projected the results on the nineteenth-century map of Bonyhád. In the first place, we concentrate on the denominational and occupational distribution of the population and the connection between these two variables. Our aim in this study is empirically to test some of the well-known relations between religious belonging and occupations (for example Jews were mainly occupied as merchants)12 and to compare results of previous studies to the data regarding Bonyhád. While there was no religious pattern or concentration of inhabitants in Sátoraljaújhely13 besides that of the Jewish population, we can assume that the results will be different in the case of a resettled community.14

According to the census, of the altogether 6036 inhabitants of Bonyhád in 1869, 2,961 were males and 3,075 were females, which means a sex ratio of 1,038 females to 1,000 males. The census registered housing statistics on a separate sheet (location, number of rooms and outbuildings, whether the building served as a place to live only or also as a shop, etc.), as it did in the case of domestic animals. On the middle sheet, the name, sex, year and place of birth, religion, marital status, occupation and occupational status, residence, presence or absence, and literacy of the inhabitants were given. Comments involving factors like e.g. illness, military service, place of absence, etc. were written in the last column. In cases of multiple households sharing the same house, a vertical line separated the Wohnparteien.15

The numbering of the houses was continuous in the settlement, so the figures started from one and increased to the number of the last house of the town, independently of the streets. 1306 Wohnparteien lived in Bonyhád in 763 houses, which means 1.7 households per houses. This figure is higher than the average for Pest County (1.3–1.4).16 The average size of households was 4.6 persons, which correspond to the national average at the time.17

In the course of our investigation, we applied five broader categories of occupations18 in order to increase the efficiency of analysis. We employed the method introduced by Péter Őri and Levente Pakot, who created the following socio-professional groups based on HISCLASS:19 (1) Groups of higher status (non-manual), (2) Craftsmen (artisans and merchants), (3) Farmers (landowners), (4) Groups of lower status (unskilled) and (5) Other.20

We do not endeavor or claim to offer any detailed examination of demographic characteristics like marital customs or the number of children in a family without the use of parish registers. We cannot arrive at reliable conclusions concerning demographic phenomena exclusively on the basis of census data, because census data provide detailed information on the population on a particular date. We know how many people lived in the town on December 31, 1869, but we have no information concerning the total number of children who were born in the family or the number of those who left their homes. Likewise, we do not know how many children were born after this day in the same family. The census material makes possible the analysis of the spatial pattern of the distribution of the household-types using Laslett’s categories.21 Laslett’s method introduced categories based on the relationships among the household-members, not the number of the inhabitants, so the uncertainty caused by the lack of all the life events can be solved by drawing on his work. Using the census data, we also can analyze the spatial distribution of the age-groups, but neither the age-distribution nor the Laslett classification showed characteristic spatial arrangement, so we decided to exclude these aspects in what follows.

We also examined household members who were not blood-related to the family, like servants or apprentices, and we compared them to their employers from the perspective of their religion or place of birth. Although there is a column for residence in the census sheet, in our opinion it’s not suitable to distinguish so-called foreigners from the resident population, because this distinction only refers to the period during which these people lived in the same place, not their origin (place of birth). The numbers of these columns confirm our assumption. 87 percent of the population belonged to the resident category according to which division, but only 75 percent had been born in Bonyhád.22

In the second half of the nineteenth century cadastral surveys were carried out in the Crownlands of Hungary, beginning in 1856 in the western part of the country and heading eastward. The survey of Tolna county was completed in the mid-1860s.23 Thus, we have a cadastral map from Bonyhád which is contemporary with the census.24 A historical map includes valuable information about the geographical situation of the town, but on the homepage of Mapire digitalized maps are available with coordinates. The webpage combined the historical maps with OpenStreetMap and Google Maps.25

By analyzing the spatial structure based on census data, we aimed to use free and/or open source software solutions that are also capable of performing transformations of raw data and proper statistical analysis. This approach makes this research much more reproducible and could help researchers conduct similar studies in the future.26 Steps followed in creating the maps are to be found at the end of our study in the annex.

Spatial Distribution

Housing statistics

Data from the census enable us to investigate housing circumstances of the inhabitants of Bonyhád. The differences are best shown by the population density (mean number of residents in a room). This value is 2.64 people/room on average in Bonyhád according to the 1869 census. However, there are differences among the houses in this respect, as shown on figure 1.27

As the map shows, most of the houses had a population density around the mean of 2.64, but there are some houses where more than four inhabitants shared one room. In the southern and southeastern parts of the town, we see buildings with low population densities. These bigger houses were owned by the Perczels and other landowning nobles. According to the map, in several cases, there were parks or large gardens on these properties behind the house. Of the 763 houses of the settlement, only 20 were two-story houses. The largest number of rooms was 23 in one house, but there were 20 households sharing the edifice, so number of rooms alone does not mean that the inhabitants were wealthy. That is why we decided to put the population density on the map, and based on the result, we can conclude that Bonyhád was more an agricultural settlement than urban.

Spatial distribution of denomination

Based on census data, Bonyhád had 2,463 Roman Catholic (40.8 percent), 1,890 Lutheran (31.3 percent), 1,359 Jewish (22.5 percent), 317 Calvinist (5.3 percent), and seven Orthodox (0.1 percent) inhabitants in 1869. In the literature, we find statements about the spatial patterns which agree in part with these figures. One source indicates that Hungarians settled down in the southern part of the town, while Germans chose the northern part.28 Others call the eastern line of houses the “Hungarian Bonyhád,” while the western line of houses was referred to as “German Bonyhád.”29 These two approaches were synthesized by Wilhelm Knabel, according to whom the two landholders of Bonyhád (baron Schilson and Ferenc Kun) split the settlement in 1729. To south and west of the main square, the “German village” developed, with the tavern, butchery, and three mills which belonged to the baron. Ferenc Kun gained the northern and eastern part of the settlement, the so-called “Hungarian village,” with the wine shop and the brewery. The part of the town inhabited primarily by German speakers tended to prefer Roman Catholic settlers, while the Hungarian-speaking community preferred Calvinists. Several Lutherans moved into the Hungarian part of the town from the surrounding settlements.30

This statement is underpinned by the map showing the spatial distribution of denominations. Protestants are found in the northern part of the settlement, and Roman Catholics populated the south. Religion seems to have had a stronger effect on spatial patterns than nationality. Many sources also state that Lutheran and Calvinist settlers did not live in the German village, and both villages had inhabitants belonging to both nationalities.31 The contention that denominational belonging was the most important single factor in determining settlement patterns within the town is also supported by the placement of cemeteries and churches, which reflects the spatial distribution observable on our map. This confirms the sources cited and also shows that the religiously differentiated structure which evolved at the time of resettlement remained stable one century later.

Jews formed their own closed community in the city center between the German and Hungarian villages. Their activities turned Bonyhád into the trading center of the region in this era.32

Spatial distribution of occupation

The census registered the occupation and occupational status of the inhabitants, and on the basis of this, we categorized the inhabitants of the settlement into the abovementioned five groups. These columns are usually left blank in the cases of women and small children, but data were available concerning household heads, older children, and other residents. Thanks to this data, we know the sources of income for 2,155 inhabitants of Bonyhád. Broken down into occupational groups, 99 of these people belonged to a stratum which had a higher status (they performed non-manual labor), 462 were artisans and merchants, 228 were landowners, and 1,302 were members of lower strata (i.e. unskilled laborers). 64 people couldn’t be categorized into the abovementioned classes (e.g. almsmen).

As over half of the inhabitants belonged to the unskilled category, which is in line with the agricultural characteristics of Bonyhád, we decided to create two subcategories. One of them includes unskilled agricultural workers only (e.g. unskilled farm workers, farm servants), while the other consists of unskilled workers who worked together with artisans (e.g. apprentices, journeymen) and other servants and maids.

As can be observed on the map, most of the merchants and artisans lived in the center of the settlement, while the northern and southern parts of the settlement were populated by landowners, especially the Protestant parts. Using our subcategories, we acquire a more detailed picture of the spatial pattern of the unskilled stratum: the distribution of unskilled workers reflects that of the artisans and landowners (agricultural unskilled workers lived outside the center of town, while apprentices and journeymen in the center). The inhabitants who did non-manual labor and therefore belonged to a higher social stratum also tended to live in the middle of the settlement.

The spatial distribution of different occupations is quite different. In some cases, artisans with the same profession lived throughout the settlement (e.g. masons), while most of the merchants were concentrated in the center, as were tailors. Weavers were only found on the periphery. Innkeepers and tavern owners opened shops both in the center and next to commercial routes in the southeastern area.

Occupation and religion

The settlement pattern according to denominational belonging shows similarities to that of occupation shown on the previous maps. We further analyzed this relationship between occupational class and denomination (leaving out Orthodox inhabitants due to their small number, we had information concerning the denominational belonging of 2,150 residents of the town). The resulting cross table shows a significant association between the two variables (p<0.001).

Table 1 shows the distribution of occupational groups within each of the four big denominations. The higher status group comprised 4.5 percent of the total population. This figure is somewhat less among Lutherans and higher in the case of Calvinists and Roman Catholics. The proportion of artisans is clearly highest among inhabitants belonging to the Jewish community (around 40 percent). It is close to 20 percent in the case of Roman Catholics and remains below 15 percent in the case of Protestants. Farmers made up almost 20 percent of the Lutheran and 15 percent of the Calvinist communities, while the ratio is below nine percent for Roman Catholics and under one percent in case of Jewish inhabitants. As we have already seen, the largest group was comprised of unskilled workers. Their proportion of the population remained under 50 percent in the case of Jews, but for people belonging to Christian denominations, it is between 60 and 66 percent. The last (Other) group has a low percentage of unskilled laborers, with minor differences between denominations.

 

Table 1. Distribution of occupational groups within denominations,
Bonyhád, 1869

	Lutheran (percent)	Calvinist (percent)	Roman Catholic (percent)	Jewish (percent)	Total (percent)
Higher	1.21	6.62	6.54	4.50	4.51
Artisan	14.42	11.03	19.61	40.05	21.49
Farmer	18.82	14.70	8.68	0.71	10.60
Unskilled laborer	64.34	66.18	61.74	49.53	60.42
Other	1.21	1.47	3.43	5.21	2.98
Total	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00

Nearly 200 different occupations are mentioned in the census data. Most professions had only a few representatives in the settlement. However, there are quite different occupational patterns in the case of the four denominations. We conducted a correspondence analysis which revealed that the main difference was between members of the Jewish community and people who belonged to the three Christian denominations. Most of the professions were avoided by Jews, while some were dominated by them. In some cases, however, the denominational distribution reflects the proportions of the population. Examples of each case are presented in Table 2.

 

Table 2. Denominational patterns in selected occupations,
Bonyhád, 1869

	Lutheran	Calvinist	Roman Catholic	Jewish	Total
Carpenter	23	4	31	0	58
Furrier	0	0	0	20	20
Mason	11	3	26	0	40
Merchant	0	0	17	60	77
Shoemaker	1	9	4	0	14
Tailor	26	3	41	16	84
Tanner	24	3	42	6	73
Weaver	20	4	15	0	39

The relationship between denominations and occupations in itself is not novel, but the spatial analysis in this case of a resettled eighteenth-century town raises several questions. Sources and the map of the spatial pattern of denominations both underpin that the eighteenth-century separation of religions still strongly affected structure of society in the nineteenth century.

The relationship between Jews living in the settlement center and the concentration of artisans here seems obvious. For a long time, Jews were not allowed to own land.33 It is easy to see why they settled in the dense central parts of the town, where they could be more successful. But is the relationship between Protestants (in this case mainly Lutherans) and the class of farmers also that univocal? One simple explanation might be that the main goal of recruiting German settlers was to find farmers to (re)cultivate abandoned lands. However, sources and contemporary laws show evidence that allowances were given not only for agricultural workers, but also to artisans.34 New settlers arriving to Bonyhád were not only agricultural workers but also artisans. It seems clear that the settlement patterns in the eighteenth century were based on denomination, but the question remains: did this also cause the occupational differences, or did inhabitants adapt to this spatial structure and chose their occupation accordingly? In other words, the direction of the possible causal relationship between denomination and occupation is still unclear and requires further investigation.

Non-relatives – cooperation and separation

According to the census data, the denominations of servants and maids corresponded to the denomination of their employers. We also analyzed the birthplace of this group of non-relatives living together with a family , which was the most mobile stratum of the population of Bonyhád. Regarding the presence/absence columns, 498 people were absent (five people only temporarily), who were listed mainly as children in the households. Their occupations were not given in every case, but otherwise they were servants, maids, apprentices, journeymen, or people serving in the military, which demonstrates the extent of the mobility of these groups.

Table 3 presents the denominational or religious belonging of servants and maids alongside the denominational or religious belonging of their employers.

 

Table 3. Religion or denomination of servants and their employers, Bonyhád, 1869

	Denominational belongings of heads of households (number)	Lutheran (18)	Calvinist (7)	Roman Catholic (44)	Jewish (37)	Total
Servant’s denominational belonging	Lutheran	15	2	10	5	32
	Calvinist	1	1	6	3	11
	Roman Catholic	4	8	54	18	84
	Jewish	0	0	0	13	13
	Total	20	11	70	39	140
	Born in Bonyhád	5	1	11	7	24

Of these 140 servants, 28 were males and 112 were females. Therefore, in all cases the number of females was always higher than the number of males. All of the servants employed by Jewish households were female, including 13 Jewish maids. Jewish servants only served in Jewish households. We can observe a more open pattern among Roman Catholics and Protestants, and not only in the case of servants and maids, but also in the case of the craftsman-apprentice relationship (Table 4). 35

 

Table 4. Religion of apprentices and their employers, Bonyhád, 1869

	Denominational belonging of heads of households (number)	Lutheran (28)	Calvinist (1)	Roman Catholic (42)	Jewish (19)	Total
Apprentice’s denominational belonging	Lutheran	12	0	10	0	22
	Calvinist	1	0	3	0	4
	Roman Catholic	24	2	67	5	98
	Jewish	0	0	0	18	18
	Total	37	2	80	23	142
	Born in Bonyhád	3	1	7	4	15

On average, Roman Catholic heads of household employed the most servants (77 servants for 44 households) and apprentices (80 apprentices for 42 craftsmen). The most frequent number of servants/apprentices was one, but there were some exceptions.36 In Tables 2 and 3, the number of servants and apprentices who were born in Bonyhád is also presented. In all cases, we can see that the proportion of local born employees is quite low. This suggests that mobility was relatively high among members of this group.37

Summary

Based on the census of 1869, we examined the socio-economic spatial structure of the agricultural settlement of Bonyhád using the cadastral map from the 1860s as a visualization tool. After a short introduction of housing data in general, the study focused on settlement patters according to denomination and occupation. We verified that resettlement still had a strong influence on the denominational structure of the community in the nineteenth century. We demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between religion and occupation. Further analysis was completed about the denomination of non-relatives and households living together. As a result, we offered statistic evidence in support of contentions found in qualitative secondary literature and earlier studies according to which Jewish society in the town was much more closed than the Christian denominations. They only worked in houses belonging to people of their own religion and they lived in a well-separable place in the town center. Spatial patterns were investigated for every profession and some of them were represented on maps. In some cases, a particular occupation seemed to predominate among the community which belonged to a particular denomination, while other occupations seemed to have been less connected to a given religion or denomination. The study also indicated the complexity of the society under study and concluded that resettlement was an important factor which influenced the socio-economic and denominational structure of the town even a century later.

Our results underpin the strong relationship between denomination and occupation and settlement patterns within the town. However, the direction of the causation needs further investigation, as an important question remains unanswered: did the settlement patterns influence occupation, and if so, to what extent, or did settlers find their homes based on their profession.

Annex

Four steps were taken to complete the maps presented later in our paper:

1. based on the historical map, polygons were defined which represent houses, and they were used to connect data concerning inhabitants and their houses to the map;

2. the file containing the historical map was read into R and GPS coordinates were added;

3. polygons were read into R;

4. statistical calculations were made and the final maps were created based on previous results.

The first step was done in Inkscape,38 a free open source vector graphics editor. Inkscape uses the open standard SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), which enables us to create small but scalable graphics. All other steps were performed in R,39 which is a free and open source software environment for statistical computing and graphics.40 The open source status makes it possible for users to contribute their own code to a central repository (CRAN). These contributions are called packages, and the number of packages grows rapidly. There are over 13,000 packages at the moment, and we use some of them for data manipulation and to create maps.

The resolution of the base map is 3080 x 6925 pixels. We read the base map into Inkscape and then used the appropriate tool to draw linear polygons on another layer to represent houses. The so-called Draw Bezier curves and straight lines tool seemed to be the best choice, as it is able to snap nodes to polygons which have already been defined, which means we could easily draw polygons which are perfectly matching and which cover the entire map. One property of all objects in Inkscape is their ID, where we used the house numbers of the census to make it easier to connect polygons to census data later on. Filling the polygons which had already been drawn with a somewhat transparent color makes the manual process even simpler.

Figure 5. Manually creating polygons in Inkscape

 

As a result, we created a vector graphic map of nineteenth-century Bonyhád which is zoomable, small, and easy to read. There are several format options available to store polygon data. We chose the so-called absolute coordinates (instead of relative coordinates), which are easier to process in R as an XML file. Once we finished drawing all the polygons, we could remove the base map and save the final vector graphic map of the settlement.

In the R environment, there are several plotting packages. We used ggplot241 and its extension for maps called ggmap.42 This latter package is applied to create visual renderings of spatial data on top of static maps from various online sources (Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, Stamen Mapsor CloudMade). The package assumes that one is plotting on a map which comes from the abovementioned online sources. However, we can convert our png file to a ggmap object by adding the bounding box data (lower left und upper right corner GPS coordinates). As a result of several lines of code in R, we now have a high resolution ggmap object which contains a raster and its place in the GPS coordinate system. As this is the basis of all the maps, we saved this into the native R datafile (RDa).

The next step was to read and convert the polygon dataset in R. As already mentioned, the svg file we created in the first step is basically an xml file which contains all polygons in nodes called path. All paths have multiple attributes, but we only need the ones named “d,” which contain the coordinates (in pixels), and the ones named “id,” which contain the house numbers. Reading and converting polygons to the GPS coordinate system enables us to produce different types of maps. On one side, we can draw the polygons with different colors representing various characteristics of the given house (e.g. population density, meaning people/room). On the other side, in several cases we plotted characteristics of the inhabitants of a given house. For instance, we put (equal size) pie charts in the center of the polygon (this approach seemed appropriate as the religion or denominational belonging of the inhabitants of a given building was usually not the same). We drew this type of map using the scatterpie package.43

 

 

Archival Sources

Tolna Megyei Levéltár [Tolna County Archives] (TML)

V. 709./c Közigazgatási iratok 1850–1949 [Administrational Documents, 1850–1949]. Bonyhád nagyközség iratai, 1869. évi népesség és háziállatok összeírása [Documents of Bonyhád, Census of 1869 and the Enumeration of Domestic Animals]. 512–513. box

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Őri, Péter, and Levente Pakot. “Residence patterns in nineteenth-century Hungary: Evidence from the Hungarian MOSAIC sample.” Working Papers on Population, Family and Welfare, no. 20. Budapest: Hungarian Demographic Research Institute, 2014.

Őri, Péter. “Család és házasodás a 18–19. századi Magyarországon. Pest–Pilis–Solt–(Kiskun) megye, 1774–1900” [Family and marriage in eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century Hungary. Pest–Pilis–Solt–(Kiskun) County, 1774–1900]. Korall, no. 30 (2007): 61–98.

Őri, Péter. “Kiskunhalas népessége 1869-ben” [Population of Kiskunhalas in 1869]. In Kiskunhalas története 3: Tanulmányok Kiskunhalasról a 19. század közepétől a 20. század közepéig, [History of Kiskunhalas 3: Studies about Kiskunhalas from the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century], 269–92. Edited by József, Ö. Kovács and Aurél Szakál. Kiskunhalas, 2005.

Pakot, Levente. “Családok és háztartások két székelyföldi településen a 19. század második felében” [Families and households in nineteenth-century Transylvania]. Demográfia 55, no. 4 (2012): 268–91.

Pozsgai, Péter. “Családok és háztartások: Torna megye társadalma a 19. század közepén.” [Families and households: Society of Torna County in the middle of the nineteenth century]. PhD diss., Budapest, Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Bölcsészettudományi Kar, 2006.

R Development Core Team. R. A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Accessed September 23, 2018. http://www.R-project.org.

Schmidt, János. Német telepesek bevándorlása Hesszenből Tolna-Baranya-Somogyba a XVIII. század első felében [Immigration of German settlers from Hessen to Tolna–Baranya–Somogy in the first half of the eighteenth century]. Győr: Baross Nyomda, 1939.

Solymár, Imre. “A történeti Völgység” [The historical Völgység]. In Tanulmányok Bonyhád történetéből [Studies on the History of Bonyhád], edited by Ernő Bábel, and Péter László, 9–38. Bonyhád: Bonyhád Város Tanácsa és a Tolna Megyei Lapkiadó Vállalat, 1987.

Solymár, Imre. “Bonyhád – hajdan Bonyha” [Bonyhád – in bygone times Bonyha]. In Tanulmányok Bonyhád történetéből [Studies on the history of Bonyhád], edited by Ernő Bábel, and Péter László, 39–63. Bonyhád: Bonyhád Város Tanácsa és a Tolna Megyei Lapkiadó Vállalat, 1987.

Szilágyi, Mihály. “Az újratelepülő Tolna megye 1710–1720” [Tolna County resettled: 1710–1720]. In Tanulmányok Tolna megye történetéből 10 [Studies on the history of Tolna County], edited by János K. Balog, 33–169. Szekszárd, 1983.

Szita, László. “A lutheránus németség bevándorlása és településtörténete Tolna megyében a 18. században” [The immigration and history of the Lutheran Germans in Tolna County in the eighteenth century]. In Tolna Megyei Levéltári Füzetek 5, edited by Gyula Dobos 5–163. Szekszárd: Tolna Megyei Önkormányzat Levéltára, 1996.

Szőts, Zoltán. A völgységi nemzetiségi-etnikai csoportok együttélése a második világháborútól napjainkig [The cohabitation of national-ethnical groups in Völgység from World War II to the present day]. Völgységi Múzeum, 2007.

Török, Enikő. “A kataszteri részletes felmérés előrehaladása Magyarországon 1856 és 1916 között” [The progression of the cadastral detailed survey in Hungary between 1856 and 1916]. Catastrum: Évnegyedes Katasztertörténeti Folyóirat 2, no. 1 (2015): 11–18.

Várady, Zoltán. “Bonyhád a törökkor végétől Mária Terézia koráig [Bonyhád from the end of the era of Turkish occupation to the rise of Maria Theresa]. In Előkészületek Bonyhád monográfiájához: előadások a IV. Völgységi Konferencián [Preparatory work for a monograph on Bonyhád: Presentations held at the Fifth Völgység Conference], edited by János László, and Zoltán Szőts, 83–92. Bonyhád, 2006.

Van Leeuwen, M. H. D. and Maas, I. HISCLASS: A Historical International Social Class Scheme. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2010.

Wickham, Hadley. ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis. New York: Springer, 2016.

* Supported by the ÚNKP-18-3-IV-PTE-323 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry of Human Capacities.

Figure 1. Population density (people/room), Bonyhád, 1869

Figure 2. Religion of the population, Bonyhád, 1869

Figure 3. Occupation of the population, Bonyhád, 1869

Figure 4. Spatial distribution of certain artisans, Bonyhád, 1869

Figure 6. Main square of Bonyhád on the final vector graphic map

The Notion of Space on Railway Maps of the Habsburg Monarchy / Austria–Hungary

Arlene Peukert
Andrássy Universität Budapest
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In this article, the notion of space on railway maps of the Habsburg Monarchy/Austria-Hungary is analyzed and interpreted. Two railway maps from the 1840s and one network map from the 1860s are examined from the perspectives of their visual language and inherent communication mechanisms. A reciprocal approach to maps is applied. The context in which maps are created (production and consumption) is taken into consideration, as is the context which is created by maps (spaces as cultural products). The desired outcome is a synopsis of the plurality of spaces envisioned in the mid-nineteenth century contrasted with the process of unification of space spurred on by the continuous expansion of railway networks. Topics addressed in this article are the rendering of nature and terrain on maps, the beginning development of a railway corridor into a network of lines, the depiction of networks, the hierarchization of territory in the visual language of maps, and the marking of space as a national territory.

Keywords: railway, maps, cartography, space, network, Habsburg Monarchy, Austria–Hungary

Introduction

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the railway started to transform the landscape and, with it, people’s perceptions of the world around them and the ways in which they moved through it.1 Novel notions of space found themselves translated into railway maps produced by engineers, planers, railway companies, publishing houses of maps, guide books, and atlases.
This paper focuses on three railway maps from the middle of the nineteenth century (1845, 1843, 1869), with the aim to show how the presentation of space in the Habsburg Monarchy/Austria-Hungary differed from map to map in the same railway project and also changed significantly over the course of only two to three decades. I outline factors accounting for these altered perceptions of space and their manifestations on maps.
My intention is to provide a synopsis of the diversity of spaces (physical, perceived, and conceived)2 on mid-century railway maps of Austrian/Austro-Hungarian provenance.

In his 1988 essay “Maps, knowledge, and power,” historian and geographer John Brian Harley (1932–1991) formulates the hypothesis that maps are cultural products which have different layers of meaning.3 Maps are never to be seen only as a presentation of geographical features, but rather must be read as a form of manipulated knowledge.4 Contextualizing maps is, according to Harley, an effective method of making maps speak about the “social worlds of the past.”5 Since at least the Middle Ages, when new structures of governance started to form, maps were used to document and legitimize claims of power in space. Images and symbols on the maps which dealt with historical, political, and mythological episodes underline these claims and are part of the communicative vocabulary of cartography.6 Although maps over time became more accurate due to improving measuring techniques and gained an aura of relative objectivity, they were nevertheless value-laden products of society.7

In order to decode the visual language of maps an interdisciplinary approach is advisable. Following Harley’s methodology, pictorial, textual, and sociological components of railway maps are going to be taken into consideration to reveal communicative patterns and mechanisms of power in maps8 and offer, on the basis of this, insights into the ways in which maps can be interpreted as expression of and tools with which to shape perceptions of space.

Railway maps are a relevant addition to the broad field of research related to the history of railway and railway transport in the Habsburg Monarchy/Austria-Hungary. Although in recent decades, especially since the proclamation of different “turns” in the humanities and social sciences, more attention has been paid to the cultural, social, economic, etc. aspects of the railway, plans and maps of railway lines and the inscribed notions of space continue to constitute a hitherto overlooked topic.9 Consequently, reflecting on historic topics from a spatial perspective can perhaps yield new insights which will prompt further research on railway history.

How the railway Transformed Space and Time – Manifestations of Spatial Perceptions on Railway Maps

Space10 and time are complex phenomena. They constitute the coordinate system of our terrestrial existence in which, knowingly or instinctively, we place every subject, object, and act. Orientation without the context of space and time is impossible.11 Without reference points, we would inevitably be lost, and we would lack any understanding of who we are and where we come from.12 Humanity has continuously endeavored to develop an understanding of time and space and arrive at systems with which to measure them. The invention of calendars and clocks turned time into a cultural product. The superimposed linearity and sequentialness of time, which are also reflected in the ways in which some human languages are composed, make it easy for us to locate events in a chronological order.13 Historical events become narratable: event A happened at a point in time before event B took place. Both events can be marked with a clear beginning and ending and stand in relation to each other.14

Space, however, eludes from our efforts to document and narrate it due to its multidirectional dimensions and the simultaneousness and coexistence of coordinates. Space is not linear.15 In order not to get lost, we apply similar methods to tracing space as we use to structure time. Movements in space are transformed into lines which can then be transferred to a two-dimensional surface: a map. In the form of lines and points on maps, space, which has no beginning and no ending and is consequently hard to narrate, becomes fixed and more controllable.16 Maps, thus, are always a reflection of how people see the environment.

The railway system (and maps thereof) can be understood as manifestation of a new spatial awareness and at the same time as tool(s) which shaped space and produced a new form of cultural space.

Historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch argues, that with the reduction of travel time, the railway helped shrink space and brought places closer together. At the same time, the increased speed of travel meant that people could reach faraway places in a much shorter time. For travelers, the space between stations lost importance, while beginning and end points of travel became increasingly significant.17

Last but not least, schedules oriented around departure and arrival times made the introduction of a standard time necessary, that by the 1890s replaced local times in Central Europe.

The railway touched and changed many parts of life in the nineteenth century and consequently also replaced an old space-time continuum with a new one.18 By tracing this novel perception of space on railway maps, we can enhance our understanding of the specific view map producers and map users had of a place or territory (mental maps19) and the ways in which this view changed over time. We can learn how authorities, stakeholders, constructors, landowners, and key political players positioned themselves and others in space, how they constructed their identities within a newly emerging understanding of space, and how this understanding of space itself was shaped and controlled.

The Development of the Railway and Railway Maps in the Habsburg Monarchy/Austria–Hungary

The history of the Austrian railway in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is commonly divided according to the phases of ownership and financing of railway projects.20 It should be mentioned however, that a clear timeline of railway periods cannot always be followed, as gaps between the order and final implementation of railway-related laws occurred.

Following a pioneering phase of private funding and planning of the first railway lines between 1824 and 1841, a phase of railway construction under state initiative took place from 1841 to 1854/5821. Having finally grasped the potential of this new means of transportation, the state wanted to bring the railway under its control in order to push the construction of new lines and connections independent of the financial aims of private investors. The expansion of the lines of the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway and the Southern Railway were among the most urgent infrastructural development plans.22 Furthermore, the Milan-Venice railway line (Venedig-Mailänder Bahn) was completed in 1846, and the challenging Semmering railway (Semmering Bahn), as part of the Southern Railway, and the Empress Elisabeth Railway (Kaiserin Elisabeth-Bahn) were built under state control. Financial restrictions put an end to the first state phase in 1854. A new railway law aimed at private investors obliged them to disclose the details of their planned railway projects for the state to check and approve.23 Between 1854/58 and 1873/80 the railway network of the monarchy grew significantly. However, private investors recoiled from financing railway projects that made sense only for the infrastructural development of the monarchy and promised less profit. Lines deemed important by the state, like the Arlberg Railway (Arlbergbahn) or a railway along the Dalmatian coast, could not be realized during that period. The financial crisis of 1873 forced the state to engage more actively in the railway program once more. The construction of the Arlberg tunnel in 1880 marked the beginning of a second phase of railway construction under state control.24 In addition to investing more money in private railway projects, the state also funded the construction of lines of pressing importance. In 1896, the k.k. Railway Ministry in Vienna was founded with the function of monitoring and controlling railway traffic and railway projects in the Austrian lands of the Dual Monarchy. In the last phase of railway politics, the New Alps Railways were built.25 Also, minor connections were created. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1918 lead to the breakup of the vast railway network, as huge parts of it were then situated in the neighboring countries, two of which were newly created states.

Numerous diary entries, episodes from fictional literature, drawings, and paintings demonstrate how the novelty of rail travel was perceived in the nineteenth century.26 This new medium not only found novel forms of expression in art and literature, it also demanded improved techniques and approaches in the scientific documentation of railway tracks.

Before people engaged in travel on a grand scale, the military and the state were the primary users of most of the manuscript maps produced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These maps were to a large extent kept under strict control and treated as secrets, as in times of conflict and war detailed maps of the territory could provide the enemy with crucial information.27 The development of the street network in the Habsburg Monarchy and the emergence of the stage coach system in the seventeenth century resulted in the production of new road maps and stage coach maps which were made available to the public as well.28 At the beginning of this phase, roads and stage coach connections were often added to topographic maps, for instance from the Austrian land surveys.29 Later, with the rise of rail and steam boat travel, further traffic connections had to be integrated into the maps. In the interest of legibility, thematic travel maps were made in the nineteenth century.30 Slowly but surely, railway maps started to supersede the stage coach maps.31 Due to the growing density of the railway network from the middle of the century onwards, railway maps grew in scale and complexity; detailed traffic and railway atlases were published. Furthermore, thematic travel maps were adapted to the users’ needs.32

The railway line Wiener Neustadt–Ödenburg – A case study on Two Different Perceptions of Space In Early Railway Maps

One of the earliest railways of the monarchy, the line between Ödenburg (Sopron, Šopron) in the Hungarian lands of the empire and Wiener Neustadt was planned and built between 1840 and 1847.33 The plan for this line was a joint venture of the Hungarian aristocrats Pál Esterházy (1786–1866), count István Széchenyi (1791–1860), and the banker Georg Simon von Sina (1783–1856). The Hungarian nobles wanted the railway to come to Hungarian lands. Count Széchenyi greeted the project commissioned by the king Ferdinand I of Austria (1793–1875)34 with great enthusiasm:

With this [project] a bright star rose for the West of Hungary; its growing radiance will illuminate the tracks of its [Hungary’s] future rapid progress. (Ein heller Stern ist damit dem Westen Ungarns aufgegangen, dessen wachsender Strahlenglanz die Bahnen seines zukünftigen raschen Fortschrittes erleuchten wird.)35

In 1845, construction work under the oversight of Mathias Schönerer (1807–1881)36 began. The track between Ödenburg and Wiener Neustadt is 31.9 kilometers long and passes through slightly hilly terrain. Leaving Wiener Neustadt, the train crosses the river Leitha (Lajta) and, thus, the former Austrian-Hungarian border. On its way to Ödenburg, the train passes by the villages Katzelsdorf and Neudorf/Neudörfl (Lajtaszentmiklós/Najderflj). The track then runs alongside the Rosalien Mountains. Several embankments and cuttings were built to cover height differences of the terrain. Before reaching Mattersdorf (since 1924 Mattersburg/Nagymarton/Matrštof), the train has to ascend the steepest part of the track (with an incline of 10.5 percent). The station in Mattersdorf was the largest on the entire line. After crossing another hill, the train passes by the villages Marz (Martz/Márcfalva/Marca), Rohrbach (Fraknónádasd/Orbuh), Loipersdorf (Lépesfalva), Schattendorf (Somfalva/Šundrof), and Agendorf (Ágfalva/Agendrof). The station on the western periphery of Ödenburg was then to constitute the end of the line.37 From the beginning of the planning period, the railway line was laid out to be double-tracked, which shows that planners expected a high volume of traffic for the line, which potentially would be prolonged to the south.38

Two monumental viaducts were built by Schönerer for the track: the Mattersburger Viadukt and the Wiesenviadukt. Both viaducts show architectural features similar to the architecture later employed in the Semmering route. It is likely that ideas for the challenging Semmering project built as part of the Southern Railway between 1848 and 1854 by Carl von Ghega (1802–1860) were put to the test in this less demanding terrain.39 Shortly after the line opened in 1847, traffic volume on the route was high, bringing economic growth to the region of Mattersdorf and Ödenburg for a short time.40

A brief comparison of the two railway maps of the same line from Ödenburg to Wiener Neustadt produced in 1843 and 1845 (Figure 1 and Figure 3) shows that different ways of presenting one and the same railway line can lead to very different visual results. Consequently, the spaces captured and reimagined by the mapmakers and commissioners differ to some extent.
Different reasons might explain the different approaches to the representations chosen for the manuscript maps, with the date of map production, the function of the map, and the prospective audiences being the most obvious. However, we often have little information concerning these kinds of factors, in particular the functions of the maps and the prospective audiences, and thus we can do little more at this point than venture guesses. If we consider the possible visual strategies of which these two maps seem to be the product, we can, however, hazard some hypotheses concerning the aims of the mapmakers.

The Role of Nature In Early Railway Maps

Map number one, entitled Uibersichtskarte der zwischen Oedenburg und Wiener-Neustadt im Jahre 1845 im Bau begriffenen LOCOMOTIV-EISENBAHN (Figure 1), is a manuscript map on paper with relatively large measurements (106 × 85 cm). The terrain is not shown in its entirety and the image does not fill the sheet; rather, the user of the map is given a cut-out of the topographic landscape stretching diagonally between Wiener Neustadt and Ödenburg. Large blank spaces on the map’s edges are used for the heading (top center) and a scale bar (bottom left). Linear measures on the map are indicated in Wiener Klafter (Vienna fathom), 158 mm = 2400 Kl. or 1 : 29,000.41 Further inscriptions are featured either directly on the topographic drawing or next to it. Roads are featured as thin black lines. The border between Austria and Hungary is shown as a thicker, broken line. Still, the border is not over-accentuated or strikingly prominent on this map.42

The projected railway line is colored red, establishing also a visual connection between Ödenburg and Wiener Neustadt. Interestingly, shortly before it reaches Mattersdorf, the track forks, which shows that in 1845 (relatively late in the planning process of the line), another option for the track which had been discussed in 1838 had not been ruled out.43 Crossing the valley near Mattersdorf was a challenging task which Schönerer was only able to solve almost ten years after the first plans were made with better knowledge of railway construction, which he acquired in part during his travels to England and America.44 The two town plans of Ödenburg and Wiener Neustadt are executed in greater detail and colored red as well. This accentuation automatically establishes a visual hierarchy among the villages and towns on the map: Ödenburg and Wiener Neustadt are of greater significance.

The visually most striking feature of the map, however, is the depiction of the terrain. Although declared in the title of the map, the projected railway track is not its sole focus. The topography of the landscape is much more prominent to the eye. This begs the question: why did the mapmaker, whose name was not indicated, chose this mode of presentation? Can we perhaps identify visual traditions to which the mapmaker was harking back which would explain the accentuation of nature and the terrain?

The dense placement of hachures to model the form and height of hills and slopes and the use of primarily dark colors like browns and greens make it hard to read the cartographic symbols and labels and spot the course of the railway line at a single glance. Color patches and hachures form a solid visual entity. The visual dominance of landscape features and landscape rendering indicates that the concept of space inscribed into the map was still routed in an environment dominated by nature. Building traffic infrastructure still meant an adaption to landscape. Although humans remodeled the environment according to their needs, until the nineteenth century, hills, mountains, and rivers still presented barriers that could only be overcome only with difficulty and effort. The course of a street or the position of a dwelling, harbor, or bridge were strongly geo-determined.45 It is thus comprehensible that topographic features seem to be disproportionally presented in especially early railway maps: the supremacy of nature and the achievement of partly overcoming natural barriers (for instance by building viaducts46) are inscribed into the visual language of the map: the railway starts to subdue nature. Moreover, for constructors and financers, the exact course of the line, possible obstacles on the way, the position of stations and the feasibility of a project (which depended on these factors) were of central importance. Maps for this user group had to be detailed and precise.

The visual language of the map from 1845 is from many perspectives in line with stylistic traditions of eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century topographic cartography. Extensive field measurements were being taken with increasing frequency and regularity in Western and Central Europe in the eighteenth century, as absolute rulers sought to document their entire sovereign space. These were the first attempts to measure every detail of the environment scientifically, resulting in accurate maps of the terrain. The first official field measurements of the Austrian crownlands were taken during the reign of Maria Theresia (1717–1780) by the military (Josephinian Land Survey/Josephinische Landesaufnahme/Erste Landaufnahme, 1764–1786).47 Between 1764 and 1786, more than 3,500 maps were drawn. A second Austrian land survey was conducted in the first half of the nineteenth century (Franziszeische Landesaufnahme, 1806–1869). Topographic maps produced during both land surveys show stylistic characteristics similar to the stylistic characteristics of the railway map from 1845. From the perspectives of image section, choice of colors, script, cartographic symbols, depiction of terrain, use of hachures, depiction of infrastructure, framing of the cartographic content, etc., especially maps from the second Austrian land survey show striking similarities to railway map.

As pointed out by Krenn, particularly during an early stage of the railway age, railway lines were additionally drawn into older topographic maps.48 Is the railway map from 1845 thus actually an updated version of an older topographic map from the region between Ödenburg and Wiener Neustadt? Without an in-depth analysis of topographic maps from the two land surveys, this assumption cannot be proven or ruled out.

New topographic maps of the area around Wiener Neustadt were made in 1820.49 For the Hungarian land, however, the latest maps were only from around 1782–1785.50 The area behind the Austrian-Hungarian border was not officially mapped again until 1856 (e.g. Pöttsching (Pecsenyéd/Pečva), Pöttelsdorf (Petőfalva), Mattersdorf, Sopron, Agendorf).51 The different dates of origin of the survey maps suggest that the mapmaker of the railway map from 1845, rather than adding information to an older map, used different topographic maps from the area to draw the railway map Uibersichtskarte der zwischen Oedenburg und Wiener-Neustadt im Jahre 1845 im Bau begriffenen LOCOMOTIV-EISENBAHN.

Because no information about the cartographer of the map, its customer, or place of presentation or publication is given on the map sheet, we can only speculate about the purpose of the map. Furthermore, we do not know whether copies of the manuscript map were made. A higher number of publicly available copies would also imply a larger circle of potential map users. Given the year in which the map was produced (in 1845, the railway line was still under construction), the prominent heading, and the way in which the railway connection is presented as a red line cutting across the hilly and challenging landscape, it is imaginable that the map addressed potential buyers of stocks for the railway line rather than travelers. In April 1845, during the general assembly in Ödenburg, it became obvious that the railway project would be much more expensive than estimated. Instead of 1.5 million Gulden, construction of the railway line would cost more than 2 million Gulden. The two monumental viaducts, changes in the track, and a restaurant near the station in Ödenburg led to an increase in costs. New stocks had to be sold in order to cover the expenses and advance construction work.

Space as a corridor: The narrow view of mapmakers concerning
the railway line from Ödenburg to Wiener Neustadt

A phenomenon present especially in early railway maps is a corridor-like view of the mapmakers concerning the railway lines and the landscapes along the track. The geo-determinacy of infrastructure apparent from the visual language of map one is also reflected in the mapmaker’s relatively narrow view of the terrain. Apart from the projected railway line, other factors relevant for the construction of the track are mapped, such as the terrain, nearby settlements, and infrastructure. As noticeable from map one, a favorable course of the route through uneven, hilly landscape required to some extent an adaption of the track to the terrain, resulting in a situation in which the railway line is more or less enclosed by natural barriers (hills, slopes, rivers, streams, etc.). One gets the impression of a natural corridor. The terrain outside the sphere of influence of the railway line is irrelevant to the project and user groups of the map, and consequently, this area is not featured (blank spaces on map).

In addition to creating a depiction of nature and natural barriers as a corridor, the engineers’ and mapmakers’ view of space also resulted in a narrow corridor perspective that ultimately was translated onto the map. The design of the railway track, the beginning and end points, and stops on the way compose the corridor. Especially in the first decade of steam-powered rail traffic, when a network of rails had not yet been established and connections existed primarily between cities or other points of economic interest, it was not yet seen as necessary to document other long-distance traffic connections. From the point where a railway line stopped or ended, travel was continued using means which had been in use before the age of the railway: by stage coach or on foot.

On the railway map from 1845 as well as on the map from 1843, roads are shown, but they mostly lead to nowhere. Still, we find indications of direction (e.g. Weg nach Froschdorf, Figure 1).

The railway map from 1843, Situations Plan der Neu anzulegenden Eisenbahn, von Oedenburg bis Wiener Neustadt (Figure 3), pushes the notion of space as corridor even further.

 

Figure 3. Situations Plan der Neu anzulegenden Eisenbahn, von Oedenburg bis Wiener Neustadt, (General site plan for the future railway from Oedenburg to Wiener Neustadt), Mihály Vágner, (222 × 48,5 cm), hand drawn, colored, on paper, 1843. Accessed on October 7, 2018.
https://maps.hungaricana.hu/en/MOLTerkeptar/7688/view/?bbox=-1170%2C-8926%2C27792%2C2862

 

Map three shows another, not realized trace design in which the railway track was planned to go through the villages Pöttelsdorf, Draßburg (Darufalva/Rasporak), and Baumgarten (Sopronkertes/Pajngrt). The mapmaker was Mihály Vágner from Ödenburg. The map is relatively large in size (222 × 48,5 cm), has an elongated format,52 and is hand-drawn on paper. The elongated manuscript map focuses almost exclusively on the planned railway line, and the surrounding area is left out. From the perspective of style, the map resembles traditional road plans and maps for waterways.

In comparison to the map from 1845, surroundings are rendered more schematic. Landscape characteristics are presented in a plain, nearly geometrical form, as was typical for cadastral maps and site plans of that time. The environment along the track is given little importance. Forests, fields, and streams are cut off at the edge of the corridor. The planned railway line is superimposed onto the existing network of villages and roads, establishing a linear connection between both cities and, thus, a new hierarchy within the region. Within the spatial corridor of the future railway line, the distance between the cities Ödenburg and Wiener Neustadt shrinks significantly. The space to the left and the right the track is considered irrelevant to the new form of travel. Or to use Schivelbusch’s phrasing, the space untouched by the railway gets eliminated.53

Another interesting component of the map from 1843 is that the area behind the Austro-Hungarian border (around Wiener Neustadt) is almost left blank. It is possible that Vágner, who was a Hungarian engineer, official of Sopron County, and land surveyor, had no detailed cadastral information about the Austrian land and that part of the railway line at hand. Also, in 1843, there were still two railway companies responsible for the construction of the line, which is why Vágner might have produced this manuscript map especially for the Hungarian planning team of the Ödenburg-Wiener Neustadt company. A signature on the map sheet with the note “Copirt” indicates that the map is a copy of the original Vágner Situations Plan. The map thus might have been copied several times and spread among a wider group of users. We do not yet know by whom (e.g. constructors, investors, the public) and to what purpose copies of the Vágner railway plan were used.

From corridor to network – The growing importance of traffic junctions on railway maps

Although, as discussed above, the Situations Plan from 1843 does not provide information about the landscape on the Austrian side of the planned railway line, the future traffic junction in Wiener Neustadt (marked as Stationsplatz) is already indicated on the map.54 Here, the line from Gloggnitz to Vienna was going to cross, forming a traffic connection between the Austrian and the Hungarian lands. Though frequent travel by train was not yet very common in the 1840s because a network of lines had not yet been established,55 both maps nonetheless seem to presage the importance of traffic junctions for movement and communication in the Habsburg Monarchy. Although in 1843 the line between Ödenburg and Wiener Neustadt had not yet been built and the southbound railway line was only completed between Vienna Südbahnhof and Gloggnitz, Vágner and/or the potential initiator of the map deemed this traffic junction and the growing network of lines significant for the region.

For the next roughly eighty to one hundred years to follow, until the emergence of automobiles and air traffic, railway lines and train stations remained the most powerful hubs and channels along which people, goods, ideas, images, innovation, and ideologies traveled. They hastened the pace of industrialization, migration, and urbanization, as well as the exploitation of nature.

 

The railway map published in 1869 by Lehmann & Wentzel in Vienna entitled Neueste Eisenbahnkarte der ÖSTERREICHISCH-UNGARISCHEN MONARCHIE: mit Berücksichtigung der Montan und Industrie Bahnen (Figure 4) shows many characteristics with which the modern-day user of traffic maps is accustomed: a stereographic projection of the area’s surface, a network indicating actual geographic position and schematized layout, station names arranged above one another for better legibility, and a color code for the single branches to simplify orientation. The user finds a coordinate system and a legend listing railway lines and associated color codes. Lines planned or under construction are marked with different graphic signatures (e.g. two thin black lines for a planned track and an alternating pattern of black and white stripes for a railway line under construction). Over the course of twenty to thirty years, a map language for railway lines used in travel developed in Europe and the Habsburg Monarchy/Austria-Hungary which in many ways is still valid today. Given the need to document the growing network and most of all to facilitate travel, the map language focuses on overview and orientation.

The title of the map, displayed in a rectangular cartouche, denotes the fast rate with which the railway network grew at the time. The user holds in his/her hands the newest railway map (die Neueste Eisenbahnkarte) which shows that map production tried to keep pace with the expansion of the network. In the second half of the century, updated maps had to be published frequently; also, the demand for maps was high. Network maps were among the most common in the second half of the century.56 Between 1857 and 1866 the railway network of the monarchy grew at a yearly rate of 327.5 kilometers. As of 1867, that rate rose to 1,352 kilometers of new railway tracks per year.57 Isolated corridors evolved into far-reaching networks with travel connections to many parts of the Dual Monarchy and beyond. The network stretches from the Austrian-German border in the northwest to the Adriatic coast in the south, from Innsbruck in the west to Karlsburg (Alba Iulia/Gyulafehérvár) in Transylvania. Particularly in the northwest, Austrian railway lines connect with the German network, making travel and trade truly international.

As a single glance at the map reveals, Vienna is in the center of the railway network. A majority of the lines built by the middle of the century radiate from the capital Vienna towards national traffic junctions, the most important of them being Pest/Buda, Brünn (Brno), and Prague. From here, the network further expands to regional traffic junctions. In the Austrian part of the empire, the railway network is much denser than in the eastern lands of the monarchy. Many of the lines towards Galicia and Transylvania were still under construction at the end of the 1860s, resulting in cities like Lemberg (Lwiw/Lwów), Czernowitz (Csernyivci, Czerniowce, Cernăuţi), Kronstadt (Braşov/Brassó), and Hermannstadt (Sibiu/Nagyszeben/Hermestatt) being at the far-flung periphery of the monarchy’s network and thus difficult to reach.

The map language, cartographic symbols, and layout and arrangement of content on the map sheet direct the user’s gaze and influence the way the map is read. The center-periphery dichotomy, for example, automatically results in a hierarchy in the virtual space created by the map, which also translates back into perceptions of the physical space. When they see a given site in a central position, map users consciously or unconsciously associate it with power and control.58 All the other points on the map are of subordinate importance compared to the center, in this case, Vienna. Spatial distance is one factor in the establishment or maintenance of a hierarchy. The duration, frequency, and possibility of travel to a place are others. Mapmakers inevitably create hierarchies in space in the sense that the map language always implies a syntactic ordering of its elements. The reader of a map cannot avoid comparing the sites designated on the map and constructing hierarchical relationship among them.

In contrast to the map from 1845, the display of terrain and landscape features is of minor significance on the network map from 1869. On map four, landscape characteristics were reduced to mere markers for orientation. Lakes, rivers, and coastlines help the user of the map get a rough sense of location. Compared to the visual language of the railway map from 1845, where the terrain was very prominent to the eye, there is nothing overwhelming anymore in nature or natural barriers on the 1869 map. The reasons for this are, on the one hand, the changed purpose and thus user group of network maps and, on the other, the modified significance of nature for the railway. The most important reason, however, was simply the growth in rail travel. In the era of industrialization and growing railways, more than ever before, men remodeled nature according to their needs. Tunnels, viaducts, bridges, and embankments are evidence of men’s desire to tame nature and foster mobility. If feasible, a railway track no longer adapts to the terrain. Rather, it cuts through nature in a straight, linear path. Seen from the window of a train, nature and natural barriers lose parts of their daunting quality. While nature is still of importance for engineers, constructors, and investors in railway lines, for passengers, as can be seen in the network map from 1869, the environment becomes a sign on a sheet of paper, helpful if one wants an overview.

In the same sense, as the significance of natural barriers fade, the importance of the display of the country’s frontier rises. Apart from the railway lines, the border is the only feature on the map rendered in color (light red), and this draws the attention of the map user to it. Furthermore, the width of the border is remarkable. In comparison to the border of Austria-Hungary, the inner frontiers are barely visibly, presented as fine, dotted lines which can easily be overlooked among the railway lines and rivers. The idea of space and territory envisioned by the commissioner and/or mapmaker is one of unification and openness. The map talks about one space: one space of traffic, even one space of language and nationality, communicated by the exclusive use of German. Not only are the title and the legend of the map in German (only), names of cities, towns, and lands are also given only in German (assuming they had German names). This gesture erases or denies differences in language and ethnicity, making space seem more national. The multi-ethnic nature of the Dual Monarchy is overlooked (or denied) on the map. The network of railway lines is what binds the space together.

Conclusion

One objective of this paper was to show, on the basis of three railway maps of Austrian /Austro-Hungarian provenience, how the railway shaped space and produced new forms of (cultural) space and how these forms of altered spatial awareness found expression in maps. Taking the methodological approach of Harley into consideration, I analyzed two railway maps of the same railway project, the line from Wiener Neustadt to Ödenburg, from the perspective of the presentation of certain visual components. I showed that the dominance of presentations of nature in early railway cartography was related to a stronger geo-determinacy of early railway lines. Nature was still seen and also depicted in maps as a barrier which confined travel and was only overcome progressively by the middle of the century. In addition, the purpose and user groups of early railway maps could account for the strong accentuation of the terrain and nature in maps. In particular, investors wanted to be informed about the exact course of the line, the terrain, stations and stops along the track, etc. Natural barriers and the (comparatively narrow) range of use of early maps resulted in a corridor perspective concerning the railway lines. Once a railway line was finished, route maps were also used by travelers. Findings drawn from the 1843 map align with the general notion that the railway helped shrink space and even make space disappear.59 As fast train connections between important cities and villages were established, the space between stations lost its relevance for travelers, merchants, etc. It started to disappear from maps and, consequently, also from people’s mental maps. The railway also accelerated the hierarchization of space, which gains increasingly importance with the network maps appearing in the second half of the nineteenth century. Network maps were aimed at a broader public wishing to travel through the monarchy. Nature in these maps has lost its restricting character and became, as shown in the map of 1869, a marker for orientation. At the same time, while space was being hierarchized (e.g. a hierarchy of centers versus peripheries), it was also bound together and unified by the network of railway lines, which went parallel with the political aspirations of the time in the Dual Monarchy. The visual language of the network map from 1869 also suggests the nationalization of space. The perspective chosen on the land, the use of German, the emphasis on governmental centers (and thus power), and the stressing of the outer border of the Dual Monarchy are indications of a progressing nationalization and delimitation of space towards neighboring countries. Further research on the notion of space in railway maps will help provide answers to some of the questions raised in this essay.

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