Page 15 [15]
ornamental codices they were not consistent, where some codices possessed by
the successor of King Matthias made their way into their Bibliotheca Corviniana,
even though the printed documents were basically excluded from the collection
as a matter of principle. Only the richly illuminated Cronica Thuréczy (Cronica
Hungarorum) was dealt with seriously. It does not mean that Csaba Csapodi did
not carefully examine all the references of a volume belonging to the great king’s
library. He also studied the afterlife of the Corvina in the 16th-17th centuries.°
It was thanks to him that the evaluation of the books that came to the attention
of the intellectuals accompanying the military after Buda was recaptured from
Ottomans in 1686 and which was transported to Vienna began. ’ He did not con¬
sider these to be corvina, instead they were identified as the library of the clergy
from the palace’s chapel. In addition, the Csapodi couple examined in detail the
books of nobles, contemporary of Matthias; Csaba Csapodi concentrated mainly
on Janus Pannonius," Gárdonyi Klára on Johannes de Zredna (Vitéz János/John
Vitez). Both of their life works are separate corpus in the history of the corvinas.
Taking into account the publications around the 500th anniversary (the Matthias
album, " Klära Zoltai’s corvina bibliography'') as milestones on the road to the
present history of the Bibliotheca Corvina, the The Corvinian Library, History and
Stock,” published in 1973 and the last decorated album Bibliotheca Corviniana
(1990)" are worthy of this list.
In contrast, European humanism research has more information on it. The
forty years after World War II was unsuitable for cooperation, therefore Hungar¬
ian scholars, including the Csapodi couple, did not have access to the interna¬
tional literature. The monumental Matthias exhibition in Schallaburg in 1982"
was only an expression of intent to collaborate, since the Hungarian scholars were
not able to produce a joint evaluation with their western counterparts of that era
of the Hungarian Kingdom. We exported — a humanist and renaissance image of
our own (not even the most modern version).® However, it was still very impor¬
tant to do so.
The three decades since the transition in government perfectly demonstrates
that there is a need to re-evaluate all the sources, it is unavoidable to expand
the sources, and the literature written by the Western-European and American
scholars during the last century must be read. Since the turn of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, Hungarian research had steadily been falling behind in
6° Csaponpı 1961; Csaronı 1971.
7 Csapopi 1984.
8 Csaronpı 1981.
CSAPODINÉ GÁRDONYI 1984.
Luxinicu, szerk.., Matyas király. .., 1940.
1 ZOLNAI K.-Firz 1942.
2 Csapopt 1973.
CsaroDi-CsAPODINÉ GÂRDONY1, Bibl. Corviniana, 1990.
Kıanıczay T.--TöRÖK-STANGLER, hrsg., Schallaburg '82..., 1982.
15 Baroch J. 1966; cf. BALocH J. 1985.
13