Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 64-65. (Budapest, 1972)

TANULMÁNYOK - Vida Mária: A Ráday könyvtár orvostörténeti jelentősége a XVIII. században

Summary The ISth century represents a turning point in Hungarian library history: the private libraries of the baroque palaces, whose sole function was to add to the splendour of the building, gave way to collections conceived in the spirit of enlightenment. They did not fall behind the scientific standards of their age and their main object was to serve national culture. As a result the zealous owners tried to transform the private libraries into public ones. Up to the beginning of the 18th century

—since King Matthias's Bibliotheca Corviniana

—large organized private libraries existed only in the dreams of students studying abroad, the only exception being the library of the poet, soldier and politician Miklós Zrinyi in the middle of the 17th century. The emergence of the large private libraries owned by aristocrats falls mainly to the second half of the 18th century. Some unique collections covering nearly all the disciplines including natural and medical science came into existence where systematic collection started at the beginning of the century: the Ráday library at Pécel (a few kilometers from Pest) or the Teleki library at Marosvásárhely (today Tirgu-Mures in Rumania) in Transylvania. The former had one advantage over the latter, viz. that it was in the heart of the country and in the age of enlightenment it could play an oustanding role as a cultural centre, because the importance of Pest started to increase only in the first part of the 19th century. Then there were no specialized collections of medical and scientific works. The rich private collections of a previous age abounding in medical works, too, either fell into foreign hands like that of János Zsámboki (Sambucus) now in the possession of the Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, or Antal János Kassai's, kept at the University of Wittenberg, or got dispersed like the library of István Weszprémi. The only exception was the library of Sámuel Köleséri, the chief medical officer of Transylvania, containing nearly 2000 volumes. Schools run by the Church of course owned many medical works already at the end of the 17th century: e.g. the Jesuit College at Nagyszombat (today Trnava in Czechoslovakia) and the library of the Calvinist College of Debrecen. The regular training of physicians started only in 1709 in Eger and later in the same year at Nagyszombat. Previously there were only preparatory schools techning only the rudiments of medicine in Transylvania, mainly thanks to the efforts of Mihály Ascanius and Ferenc Pápai Páriz, in addition to some private schools in Upper Hungary like those of Pál Görgey and Dániel Fischer. The Ráday Library was founded after the Peace of Szatmár (1711). The founder, Pál Ráday was an active supporter of the national fight for independence lead by Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II. He was a confident and the secretary of the Prince, whose famous manifesto entitled "recrudescunt diutina inclytae gentis Hungáriáé vulnera . . .", explaining the just cause of the Hungarian nation before the public opinion of Europe, was edited by Ráday. At Szatmár the Hungarian ruling class made peace with the House of Habsburg; for Hungary that put an end to the fight for national independence for a long time, while the leader, Rákóczi spent his remaining life in exile, first at the French Court, then at Rodostó in European Turkey. Pál Ráday recognized that in the given historical situation the only viable course open for the nation was the advancement of national culture and education, and he decided to educate his son in this spirit. For some time he still took part in the fights of the Reformed (Calvinist) Church (the family was of ardent Protestant feeling) as deputy of Nógrád county. But following the Diet of Pozsony (today Bratislava in Czechoslovakia) in 1723 which resulted in the complete defeat of the Protestants, he