Dénesi Tamás - Dejcsics Konrád (szerk.): Collectanea Sancti Martini - A Pannonhalmi Főapátság Gyűjteményeinek Értesítője 2. (Pannonhalma, 2014)
II.Közlemények
116 JEZSUITA ISKOLADRÁMA-SZÍNLAPOK... Norbert Medgyesy S.: Jesuit school-play-show-bills, play-texts and periocha-fragments in the Manuscript Archive of the Library of the Archabbey in Pannonhalma The present paper deals with documents extant in the Manuscript Archive of the Library of the Archabbey in Pannonhalma from the 18th century: 5 printed school-play-show-bills never examined earlier, and 12 manuscript non-Hungarian play-books never published before. The Benedictines did not have secondary schools in Hungary in the 17th and 18 th centuries, therefore they could not develop customs of performing plays, either. Thus, these sources can be found in the Library’s archive called Jesuitica as a result of the collections put together by the Jesuit priest, Mihály Paintner and the Benedictine monk, Gergely Czuczor. Documents concerning baroque school-plays in Hungary: as a result of our research, it turned out that the only periocha (compendium) of Hungarian origin kept in Pannonhalma is that of a bucolic play entitled Adonis performed in Nagyszombat in 1765. The following play-texts announce performances in Hungary: Der Vorwitzige , a comedy in German (Kőszeg, 1774); Absolo , a biblical play by Jospehus Heimer (Sopron, 1767); and a historic play entitled Cassius (Sopron, 1767). There are no evidence whether the playtext of Pittacus is that of the performance in Sopron in 1768. Lacking the show-bills, one can hardly identify the circumstances of the performances of a Metastasio-adaptation entitled Themistocles extant in a complete libretto, or those of Antiquarius , a play staged on the basis of Theatrum poeticum et Historicum (1595), either. The same can be stated about Bos ad Praesepe , a Christmas-play in the house of Thomas Puondus in London, the adaptation of a play with identical title in Anton Claus’s Exercitationes theatrales (1750), a compilation of examples. Play-programmes from abroad: in Pannonhalma, there are extant, so far unknown printed play-programmes and complete hand-written Latin play-texts from all over the Austrian Jesuit Province beyond the Leitha in the Habsburg Empire, from Graz, Klagenfurt and Linz, in addition to those from the boarding-schools in Ljubljana, today in Slovenia. From a performance in Klagenfurt: a play of ancient Roman history entitled Cleomenes based on Herodotus in 1747 – completed with a Declamatio as a school-exercise; two plays of different structures but identical theme entitled Q. Fabius about Quintus Fabius Maximus strategist-tyrant based on Livius’ history, Ab Urbe condita performed in Linz in 1745, and a year later in Ljubljana (Labacium). The didactic-allegoric play entitled Amor ex odio firmior based on Beyerlinck’s encyclopaedia, Magnum Theatrum Vitæ Humanæ (Köln, 1631) delighted the audience in Graz on 28 April 1732. Mihály Paintner’s enumeration of the Latin and German Ariae Diuersae of unknown provenance from the 18th century, can offer novelties for later research of musicology. In a further phase of research, the data of periochae extant in a Pannonhalma will be specified in the show-bill-data-base in progress, and their facsimile edition will also be prepared.
