Kasza Péter (szerk.): Stephanus Brodericus - Epistulae (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Medii Recentisque Aevorum, Series Nova XIV., Argumentum Kiadó - Magyar Országos Levéltár, Budapest, 2012)
On the Correspondence of István Brodarics
circumstances of Brodarics, the positions he held during his life, and, finally, the lack of a letter book, and the way his letters were left to us as a consequence. We only need to have a glance at his biography to see clearly that we are dealing with a Humanist, the last Chancellor of the Jagiello family, who had a rather turbulent life. He was bom around 1480 and spent the first 40 years of his life in the tranquillity of the “golden era” of Jagiello rule - tranquil relative to the period after Mohács. The problem is that only a few letters from Brodarics are extant from these years. By the time he steps out from relative obscurity in 1522 and the number of his letters begins to increase, the author’s is beyond the peaceful period of his life. In the period 1522- 1539 the longest time Brodarics spends at one place is some months. His diplomatic missions call him from one place to another, or he has to move because of the military situation, or he has to follow the court of his master Szapolyai, a court that moved frequently. This career is extraordinary even under the conditions of the era. Erasmus, who also travelled much and could not settle, spends seven years in Basle between 1522 and 29, during which time he corrects and rewrites several of his earlier works and has those printed at the local print-shop of Frobenius. Miklós Oláh practically goes to exile when he accompanies the widow Queen Maria to the Netherlands, but this means that, between 1531 and 1542, he lives in the Brussels court famous for its rich intellectual life. He has the opportunity to meet almost all the prominent scholars and artists of his time. It is characteristic that OlálTs letter book (the first that is extant since the letter book of János Vitéz!) contains exactly letters of the decade 1527-1538, the period he did not spend in the turbulent theatre of war that Hungary had become. There is no such calm period in the case of Brodarics. This was certainly a serious obstacle that denied him the opportunity to maintain literary relationships and write letters on literary topics. However, even more important than his tumultuous life are the positions Brodarics held during his life. In this regard the period before 1522 can be ignored because we have all in all seven letters from that time. On the other hand, after 1522, first he is Legate in Rome until the autumn of 1525 with short interruptions, then he becomes Chancellor in 1526. After he switches sides in 1527, he becomes a prominent diplomat of Szapolyai. He is virtually permanently on the road, negotiates in Italy, Paris, Cracow, Vienna, and at various locations in Hungary. Even though he had had first rate Humanistic education during his studies in Padua and Bologna, he was active most of his life as a diplomat and a court person rather than a Humanist devoted to literature and the arts. Erasmus’ words written when Jacobus Piso died apply to him as well: “primum aula, deinde calamitas, nuper etiam mors hominem nobis abripuit”.7 It is not surprising then that the extant letters of the Royal Secretary, Legate, Chancellor, and diplomat do not discuss literary topics because the majority of those letters are not written by the Humanist scholar concerned with bonae litterae but by the diplomat and statesman busy in the thick of action. His letters are, on the one hand, necessarily factual, since as a legate or diplomat his 7 See: Ritoókné Szalay Agnes, Erasmus és a XVI. századi magyar értelmiség = Idem., Nympha super ripam Danubii. Tanulmányok a XV-XV1. századi magyarországi művelődés köréből, Budapest, 2002, 163. 22
