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same time, thanks to the military successes (the Italian wars: 1499—1513) of the
French king, Louis XII (1498-1515) a considerable share of the Pavia collection
ended up in Paris, significantly expanding the collection of Francis I (1515-1547),
who established the French royal library.
During the reign of Matthias Hunyadi, the main household of the Este fam¬
ily was in Ferrara. At the time of Ercole d’Este, in 1495, the library included 512
volumes, unusually (for us) mainly Italian codices.*8
Ihe overview of European court libraries contemporary with Matthias must
include a separate chapter for the Medici family. Cosimo Medici in 1428 only
owned a 63-volume library, which, however, did contain Dante and Boccaccio
works in Italian. In 1444 the family library was made public (Biblioteca Medi¬
cea Pubblica)** and situated at the Dominican convent of San Marco. The codi¬
ces of the humanist Niccolé Niccoli, which were placed at his death in 1437 at
the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, were also moved here.” Afterwards the
Medici family built another library (Biblioteca Medicea Privata), which, by the end
of Lorenzo Medici’s life, totalled 1019 volumes. In 1494 these books were also
placed at the San Marco convent, so, according to its catalogue from 1499, it had
1232 volumes. Today’s Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana was formed in the 16th cen¬
tury by combining the family’s new books and the libraries of the San Marco and
the Santa Maria de Fiore churches.*° The Bibliotheca Latina and the Bibliotheca
Graeca halls in the San Marco convent were formed as they can be seen today by
the 1450s. It is difficult to believe that this humanist model-library did not have
an inspiring force on the humanists arriving to Buda and guiding the development
of Matthias’s library.
In truth, the size of the papal library could be comparable to the Bibliotheca
Corvina. At the death of Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455),*” who was the founder
of a papal library institution, it had 1200 codices (a third was in Greek and the
rest was in Latin). The official library was formally established by the bull of Pope
Sixtus IV (1471-1484) beginning with ,ad decorem militantis Ecclesiae” (15th June
1475).% In 1480 the catalogue arranged by Bartolomeo Platina had 2527 regis¬
tered volumes.” Analysing the linguistic composition of the library shows us that
besides the predominance of Latin and Greek, very few works written (or printed)
in Italian and other national languages can be found. Thematically the largest pro¬
portion of works are theological, although the classical authors and contemporary
humanists are present in considerable number.
33 BerTONI 1903; the catalogue of the year 1495: 235—-252.; Mitano E. 1997.
34 ULLMANN-STADLER 1972.
355 Garin 2000.
36 Moranpin1 1986; Lenzuni, a cura di, All’ombra del lauro, 1992; FagBri-Tacconi, a cura di, / libri del
Duomo di Firenze, 1997.
37 Cantatore 2010.
38 MANFREDI 2010.
39 "Tocci, a cura di, Quinto Centenario della BAV, 1975. The latest monumental library history: MANFREDI,
acura di, Storia della BAV, 1, 2010; on this: Di SANTE 2010.
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