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

that Vitéz' collection, like several others in Hungary, became the basis for making further copies. The Archbishop oi Cracow requested a copy of a Livy codex from Vitéz via the Polish humanist Marcin Król, who was staying in Várad. An abundance of model copies for emendation was rare, but not unknown. In his codex of the letters of St Jerome, now in the Austrian National Library, Vitéz noted the date of emendation on several pages. He completed the first major section on 1 1 July 1470, the second on 23 July, and by 1 September he had read through and corrected the entire codex. Beside the last date he wrote: Emendare ad plenum non potuipropter varia exemplaria emendacior tarnen est aliis similibus quos viderim Jo[annes], i.e. he could not correct it perfectly owing to the diversity oi reference copies, but the text had nonetheless become more accurate than any that he had yet seen. His scholarly and literary work was not confined to correcting and reconstructing texts. A modest-looking paper manuscript preserves his greatest achievement in this area: his collected letters. These he wrote for political and governmental purposes, and he wrote only the early ones in his own name, but they nonetheless accurately reflect their author's literary and scholarly sophistication and his world-view. The most debated aspect of the Vitéz library is still its relation to Matthias' library. Many of the archbishop's codices passed to the Corvina. There are only hypotheses to explain how this might have happened. Vitéz' hand may be recognised in the marginal notes of many Corvinas. It was common at the time for a humanist scholar to check and verify the texts of a royal collection, and that may have been all that was involved. But it is more probable that these codices were originally Vitéz' own property. The possibility that the King confiscated Vitéz' codices after the archbishop openly turned against him m the early 1470s, and died a prisoner of his Esztergom palace in summer 1472, is unlikely. Although there is clear evidence that some Vitéz codices did pass to Matthias' library — underneath the royal arms denoting the owner on the title page of the Corvina containing the works of St Basil the Great, for example, are Vitéz' armorial bearings — the whole library was definitely not confiscated. Vitéz' successor as archbishop, Johann Beckensloer, took with him a great many codices from Vitéz' library to Austria when he transferred his allegiance from Matthias to Frederick. These books were therefore still in Esztergom four years after Vitéz died, and the King had not seized them. The codices which passed to the Corvina and were given new coats of arms or Corvina bindings, were almost certainly taken to the Buda library on an occasional basis. These may have happened to be in Buda when Vitéz died, either in his own house or m the royal court, perhaps on loan for reading or copying from the Esztergom collection. Vitéz and the Creation of Humanist Institutions in Hungary In I 465, following the death of Dénes Szécsi, Vitéz was made Archbishop of Esztergom, the highest ecclesiastical dignity m the realm. He must have seen everything as being in place for him to put into action his large-scale cultural plans. He must also have felt he had the unquestioned confidence of Matthias, who had stabilised his own position in the realm and Hungary's position in Central Europe. It was Vitéz who produced the pattern for the set of institutions which the King set up by the mid-decade. Of particular note was the patronage by which he assisted the most talented youths —Janus Pannonius, Péter Garázda, Péter Váradi — to acquire modern learning in Italian universities and thus become members of the humanist European republic, the res publica litteraria. The patronage Macrobius Codex of Péter Garázda, 2nd half of the 15th century München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 15.738,