OCR
modern period, the Viennese court decided on a communication tactic where they posited that the Hungarians were Christian only thanks to the Austrians, and were somewhat cultured at best. Ihe history of the Corvina — created moreover by a king who had conquered Vienna and had imperial ambitions as well — could thus (if the Habsburg court created its unity) have been appropriated to the benefit of Vienna as a provider of culture. This view can also be observed in the attitude of the Transylvanian Saxons towards the Corvina. In the debate with the Szeklers (Hungarians living in Transylvania) — about who has the more ancient culture, the idea was put forward that they, the Saxons were the successors of the Buda court and the Corvina; but alas, at the end of the 17th century the Buda collection along with the valuable Saxon heritage, which had been evacuated to Brassé, was destroyed by fire. Nevertheless, the Corvina is the achievement of the Renaissance humanists. Responsible scholars, or even mischievous adventurers, but above all intellectuals who loved books worked hard to enrich the Buda library. The desired aim, gathering the near-complete ancient corpus of texts in one place, is indeed something worth getting excited about. Furthermore, it is also an ideal basis for excellent cultural policy and academic affairs: the leaders of the Hungarian Kingdom in the last third of the 15th century made use of this opportunity. It is not surprising, therefore, that the humanists of Europe were mourning the loudest over the disintegration of the Corvina. They saved what they could, preparing those texts for publication which had only one manuscript copy. In addition, the great King Matthias Hunyadi, who financed this miracle, was commemorated everywhere; the intellectual always praises the one who pays for the realisation of their dreams. ‘This is how the reputations of King Matthias, the Corvina, and the Hungarian Kingdom were linked. In the early modern age, “Matthias Corvinus” and “Bibliotheca Corvina" became such everyday terms similar to "puszta", “goulash”, or “Tokaj wine” today. They are still relevant even if, by 2022, they are slowly vanishing terms due to the communication of hateful political groups (and the economic mafias behind them). In the 16th and 17th centuries, whenever the word Hungaria was mentioned in a book, regardless of genre, the name of the Raven King and Corvina appeared, in histories, itineraries, historical chronologies, or even in collections of sermons for daily religious practice. But above all in scholarly publications. Especially in those that published a better and increasingly manuscriptbased collection of ancient ¢extus. This brings us to the scholarly research of the 18th century, which combined the themes of Aistoria litteraria, historia bibliothecarum, and historia Hungariae. Research on the history of the Bibliotheca Corvina also began at this time. A contemporary description of the library by Naldo Naldi (1436-1513) and a near-contemporary commemoration of Johannes Alexander Brassicanus (1500?-1539) and Miklés Olah (1493-1568) were published. The sources of the history of the codices were enumerated, just as research on the history of the Hungarian Kingdom shifted to concentrating on sources. This is how