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

PÉTER FARBAKY, ÁRPÁD MIKO, ENIKŐ SPEKNER, KORNÉL SZOVÁK, ISTVÁN TRINGLI, ANDRÁS VÉGH: Matthias Corvinus, the King. Tradition and Renewal in the Hungarian Royal Court, 1458-1490

diers were needed when the Hungarians led campaigns into the Ottoman Empire. Bohemian, Polish and Austrian armies, despite being Western in character, all differed from each other. Most of the border-castle garrisons along the southern borders were assembled from local light cavalry and infantry, and the Danube was defended by a river fleet of small boats and sloops. The basis of the kingdom's military strength was originally the baronial and royal battalions, the banderia, which were paid for by their lords. Added to this was an army of foreign mercenaries, which became important during the Bohemian wars, comprising small units whose commanders made fixed-term contracts with the King's agents. Its weaponry was not uniform, and included heavy cavalry and infantry armed with high standing shields and thrusting-slashing weapons, with a small number of handgunners. The common term "Black Army", a name coined after Matthias' death, applies to only some of these formations. There were also troops maintained by Serbian nobles who had moved to Hungary, mostly light cavalry. These, the first cavalry formations to be called Hussars, were also regularly deployed in the western wars. Traditional siege engines and guns were used to attack castles, and there were specialised soldiers whose trade was to operate the heavy artillery. Cannons had little function in open battle. The number of soldiers under arms constantly changed. Captured commanders and soldiers were set free for a ransom, but it was also quite customary for a bargain to be struck whereby they subsequently served their captors. Matthias' Residences Ceremonial sword ot the rector oi the Republic oi Raguza, gift of King Matthias, 1466 Wien, Knustliistorischcs Museum Work on a Late Gothic reconstruction of the royal palace at the south end of Castle Hill in Buda was started by Matthias. He did not have the palace extended. In the first renaissance phase in the mid-1470s, an Italian workshop under Chimenti Camicia, the Florentine inlay artist-turned-architect, transformed the internal spaces of the existing building with gilded wooden ceilings, new windows and coloured Majolica tile floors. The second phase, the second half of the 1480s, gave rise to hanging gardens and the second floor of the west palace range over the still-extant cellar, the Cisterna Regia. The second palace courtyard was surrounded by arcades on the two upper stories. A start was made on the Late Gothic conversion of the two-storey palace chapel and unfinished palace of Matthias on old foundations on the Danube side of Sigismund Court. Matthias also inherited the palace at the foot of the hill in Visegrád, and rebuilt it in the Late Gothic style between the mid-1470s and mid-1480s. The principal