Mikó Árpád szerk.: Reneissance year 2008 (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2008/1)

EDIT MADAS, FERENC FÖLDESI: Star in The Raven's Shadow. János Vitéz and the Beginnings of Humanism in Hungary

Latin text. A demand to read texts written in Hungarian arose relatively late, however. The earliest surviving Hungarian-language book is the Jókai Codex, a collection of the legends of St Francis from around 1440. All of our Hungarian-language codices are on religious themes and are based on Latin sources. They were intended for reading to the public or for private worship outside the liturgy, such as the I ïenna Codex, which contains the minor prophets of the Old Testament and the Festerics Codex, a prayer book produced to high artistic standard for Benigna Magyar. Prayer book of Benigna Magyar (Festetics Codex), betöre 1494 Budapest, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, \l\'y 73. János Vitéz' Library We know nothing of János Vitéz' childhood and upbringing, but given his Slavonian origins he probably studied in Zagreb. As a young man, he was the priest of a diocese and - probably through Mátyás Gatalóczi, head of the royal chancellery, former Provost of Zagreb — he was admitted to the court of King and Emperor Sigismund. It was only subsequently that he matriculated in the University of Vienna, in 1434, where he studied for only a short time. He was a clerk until the death of the King in 1437 and held the post of chief clerk under his successor. King Albert. He wrote letters and charters and was active in diplomacy. He is known to have been a member of the mission to Cracow, which invited Wladislaw I to the Hungarian throne in 1440. After the Zagreb prebend, almost certainly in recognition of his official work, he was made Provost of Várad in 1442. The development which proved most valuable from his years in the chancellery after entering into Sigismunde court was his encounter with Pier Paolo Vergerio (1370—1444). The master was already old (extremely old for the time) and most of his life's work — for which he is regarded as an outstanding figure of the first great humanist generation - was behind him. His most outstanding work became the foundation of Renaissance education theory. Although his links with Italy had thinned out, he had not abandoned scholarship. Vergerio may have given Vitéz the crucial impulse to discover the new, classical-humanist ideal of culture radiating from Italy, because he was a member of a small company of scholars which had already formed up around the young Pier Paolo Vergerio's work ot education theory Budapest, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Cod. Lat. 314.