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

Edit Madas, Ferenc Földesi Star in The Raven's Shadow János Vitéz and the Beginnings of Hungarian Humanism The golden age of die Hungarian Renaissance offers several fruitful lines of historical inquiry, particularly in the area ot book culture, whether one turns to the history of Matthias Hunyadi's library, the fate of the Corvina Library under succeeding kings, the coexistence of Renaissance and Gothic book art, or cultural life in the late 1 5th century Buda court. The need for a reassessment applies even more pressingly to the beginnings of humanism in Hungary. For several centuries, Hungarian historical and political consciousness has been preoccupied with the cultural achievements of "Matthias Corvinus". The period attracted historians because it was the age of "national greatness", and relative paucity of Renaissance records from those periods also dampened attention to the first half and middle third of the century. The study of book culture has insufficient material to fill a tableau or to trace the history of any one collector of books. Set against this background, János Vitéz

1 library has been a vital source for Hungarian cultural history since the late 19th century, and the man himself — through his appearances on the public stage, his scholarship and his patronage — was a unique phenomenon. Vitéz' oeuvre is congruent with the beginnings of humanism in Hungary, and his surviving works, above all his Book of Correspondence, together with his library, even in its fragmentary state, form the first adequate set of sources for tracing the story of a scholar-prelate in Hungary living at the transition between the medieval and the Renaissance. Joannes de Zredna was born in Slavonia, and never wrote down the name Vitéz. He was among those highly educated intellectuals in Hungary who seized on the new classic humanist scholarship as it radiated north from Italy — reaching Hungary among the first. Vitéz was more than a mere participant in this artistic transition: he laid the foundations of the institutions — library, patronage, printing press, university — which enabled the new ideal of culture to take root in the realm. Nevertheless, elements of both of these eras exist side by side in his oeuvre. His library was the first humanist collection in Hungary, and he set out to collect the most authentic texts of ancient authors, but he also included medieval codices collected by his predecessors as Bishop of Várad. His Book of Correspondence shows the same duality. The sparks of scholarship in the classics repeatedly shine out from his letters, usually in the form of quotations from ancient authors. But the occasionally awkward form of expression of the letters, a sentence structure which comes over as verbose, and the strict confinement to diplomatic correspondence betrays a medieval author who does not consider worthy of preservation and publication the simpler, Cicero-style cpistolac familiäres, letters betraying his personality, if such, indeed, he ever wrote. The duality of János Vitéz' scholarship itself reflects an era in which medieval and Renaissance culture existed side by side, and often in interaction. The Living Middle Ages As humanism began to make its appearance, medieval forms remained in use in scholarship and the arts. An examination of János Vitéz' medieval background is thus essential to an appreciation of his epochal oeuvre and its novelty. Vitéz worked primarily in two major centres: Várad and Esztergom. It was by carrying forward and reforming the several century-old ecclesiastical traditions of these two towns that he succeeded in revitalising cultural life around him. Several of the codices on display represent the episcopal and archiépiscopal seats, although none are directly connected with Vitéz. Most of the codices are simple Latin-language paper manuscripts used for learning and everyday work. Such are the Esztergom Schoolbrooks, clerical reference books for preaching and confessions, and some historical books and entertainments for private use. All are written using some type of Gothic script (book hand, semicursive book hand, cursive hand). Liturgical books, unlike manuscripts for personal use. were usually copied on to parchment, because they were intended for continuous and sustained use. This is not the sole significance of liturgical codices. Two codices