H. Kolba Judit szerk.: Historical Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum Guide 2 - From the Foundation of the State until the Expulsion of the Ottomans - The history of Hungary in the 11th to 17th centuries (Budapest, 2005)

ROOM 5 - The Age of Matthias Hunyadi (second half of the 15th century)

35. Glass goblet of King Matthias, Venice, 2nd half of thel5th century; foot late 16th -. early 17th century dow-frames possible (Fig. 34). Over the ambulatory of the court of honour in Visegrád, a Renaissance loggia bearing the date 1484 was erected, with a Renaissance fountain in the middle of the court. The royal provostal church in Székesfehérvár, founded by St. Stephen, was rebuilt in Late Gothic style, here the burial chapel of the king was also built. On his Bohemian and German territories Matthias used for display purposes the stylistic characteristics of Late Gothic; the most typical example of this is the Thuróczy Chronicle, also intended for foreign circulation. Its chronicle-writing method is based upon mediaeval traditions; and the engravings of both its editions - the more ornate Augsburg and the simpler Brno one - were executed in Late Gothic style. Matthias's work most admired by posterity, too, was the library named much later the Bibliotheca Corviniana, which according to a contemporary panegyric poem, was called in its time the Bibliotheca Augusta, or August Library. Its most expensive volumes were written and illuminated in Italian workshops, but codices were also copied and adorned in Buda. The library with its book stock consisting of scientific, artistic and theological works, with volumes by the Fathers of the Church as well as by the authors of Antiquity, was, in the eyes of contemporaries, a model to be followed. The patrons of art and the supporters of the scholars living at the court were the royal couple themselves. We have placed over the glass-cases copies of their portraits in relief, made by a northern Italian sculptor, and a stone-carving decorated, according to a Humanist custom, with the emblems of Matthias and Beatrix; the last-mentioned having been found among the ruins of the royal castle at Nyék. In the political as well as the cultural life of the mid-15th century, János Vitéz, bishop of Nagyvárad (Oradea) and later archbishop of Esztergom, was an eminent personality. He played an important role in spreading Humanistic ideas in Hungary. In the first phase of Matthias's reign Vitéz was an intimate counsellor of the king; later in 1471, because of the Bohemian campaigns of which he did not approve, he turned against Matthias, who had begun to go his own way. The University of Pozsony (Bratislava) was brought into existence in 1467 by the support of János Vitéz, who became its first chancellor. After the death of Vitéz the university wasted away. Fragments of János Vitéz's tombstone came into light among the debris of the Cathedral of St. Adalbert in Esztergom. Today the restored tombstone is kept in the cathedral's crypt. Foreign ambassadors, eyewitnesses of court festivities, report the richness of Matthias s treasury, the dressers groaning