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The corvina as the source used in humanist
textual criticism research and publishing
Ihe contemporary humanist community often mentioned in their correspond¬
ences that the Buda collection had several versions of antique and early Christian
authors that needed to be studied. After the death of the monarch until the Ot¬
tomans arrived to Buda (1526) various well-known, mainly Viennese humanists
expressed interest in the state of the library or certain codices.
It is well-known in the literature that Johannes Cuspinianus (1473-1525) and
Johannes Alexander Brassicanus (15002-1539) secured a number of codices for
themselves and after both libraries were bought by Johannes Fabri (1478-1541) he
possessed the most corvinas beside Matthias Hunyadi."° The history of how the
codices made it to Vienna was recently summarised by Ferenc Foldes.'”
It would be unfair to say that Hungarian scholars neglected to research of 16th
century humanist text editions from the Bibliotheca Corvina point of view, but
until now the data collection was aimed at information on the external history of
the Corvina (disintegration, the fate of certain codices) in the editions’ forewords.
Research into the possibility of the corvina codices being the basis of humanist
text editions has been overshadowed until recently.'"* This kind of research takes
lots of time, here our only intention is, besides mentioning the results to date, in
order of publication data, only to highlight newly emerged data.
‘The first text to be published based on a Corvina codex was the letter of cardinal
Johannes Bessarion (1403-1472) (Epistola ad Graecos). This information emerged
from the foreword of Sebastian Murrho (1485-1551) of Deventer, active humanist
in Alsace, written for Joachim Vadianus (1484-1551) (Strassburg, 1513).'"? Simi¬
larly, Philostratus’s work also ended up in the printing house of Matthias Schiirer,
translated to Latin by Antonio Bonfini with the title De vitis sophistarum libri
duo and published in 1516 by Nicolaus Gerbel (1485?-1560).'”° In 1516 the work
of Diodorus Siculus, Libri duo, primus de Philippi, regis Macedoniae... rebus gestis
translated from Greek to Latin was also published."
16 For a comprehensive overview of the history of the library and its destruction by the Turks, with a rich
bibliography, see: CsApopi 1961; CsApPopi 1971; CsAPoDpi 1984.
1 FÖLDESI 2002.
48 Tue first major bibliographic summary: ZOLNAI K.-Firz 1942, then: Csapopı 1973, and Monok
2004.
THE text was copied in Buda by Augustine Moravus from the codex that is now in the Hungarian
national library: OSZK Clmae 438. The edition: Bessarton—Aucustinus Moravus 1513 (OSZK
Ant. 2733.); Csapopr 1973, Nr. 115. Cf. furthermore ExLer 2015; Exier 2016.
120 Tue codex: OSZK Clmae 417., the edition: OSZK App. H. 1626.
121 VIENNAE Pannoniae, Hieronymus Vietor, 1516 (OSZK App. H. 2526.)
119
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