Conservation around the Millennium (Hungarian National Museum, 2001)
Pages - 113
Buda in the 16th century”.9 The binding in Paris could be made around 1500, while king Matthias died in 1490, which means that he could not be his book binder. According to Marianne Rozsondai, contrary to Jolán Balogh’s reasoning, the codex was really bound by Lucas Coronensis and the book belongs among the blin tooled Renaissance bindings from Buda.10 Éva Koroknay finds it possible that the book binder of the corvinas was an eastern master. She can prove from her local investigations in Egypt that the ornaments of the corvina bindings are strikingly similar to the patterns of the tapestry of Cairo.11 The rich gilding of the boards, the central arrangement of the patterns, and the use of coloured - blue and yellow - onlays also indicate eastern- taste. The appearance of coloured paper fillings and leather cuttings that can be seen on a few volumes is a unique and exotic phenomenon (e.g. on the Damas- cenus corvina). This latter decorative pattern cannot be met either on the contemporary Italian or other Hungarian renaissance bindings made in other workshops. The data we have so far unambiguously tell that there are no original corvina bindings of eastern technique, except for the Greek codices that King Matthias purchased in their bindings. The binding technique of the corvinas stands the closest to the western, mainly Italian binding technique, and cannot be compared to the characteristic eastern binding technique. A book binder could more easily learn eastern (or any other) decorative patterns having an exemplar to be copied than the binding technique since it needs long learning and practising. It also changes more slowly than the decorative patterns. So it is improbable that King Matthias’s book binder would have come from the east. So far we can state that the book binder of the royal court was a master who knew the western and eastern book decoration methods equally well, and using this knowledge with exceptional taste, created something new and original. (Picture 8) The devastation of wars, regrettably, wiped away the traces of the royal workshop and its equipment and left only a few valuable memories to the descendants. 8. Front cover of corvina OSZK Cod.Lat.427. 113
