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Vincentius Obsopaeus (1498?-1539) begins his dedication to Willibald Pirck¬
heimer (1470-1530) for his publication of the letters of Basilius Magnus and Gre¬
gorius Naziansenus in 1528 as follows:
„Cum nuper inspiciendum mihi obtulisset ex bibliotheca tua, Bilibalde clarissime Geor¬
gius Leutius, codicem epistolarum Basilii et Gregori, quem cum ob literarum charac¬
teras, tum ob vetustatem vehementer videre cupiebam. Est enim, ut mihi coniecturam
facienti visum est, ante ducentos aut amplius annos descriptus, inque regis Ungariae
Bibliothecam repositus!”*?
None of the manuscripts known today have been identified as a piece of the
Bibliotheca Corvina or the Pirckheimer library, however, the quotation is straight¬
forward: the former Buda copy contributed to the philological accuracy ofthe 16th
century edition.
‘The longest epic text connected to the history of Matthias Hunyadi’s library
between 1490 and 1526 is Brassicanus’s description of his Buda visit in 1525. In
his work he lists several codices he saw there. This description can be found in the
Salvianus Massiliensis edition (1530) in the dedication to Christoph von Stadion
(1478-1543), Bishop of Augsburg (1478-1543) published by Brassicanus.'* ‘The
basis of the publication was the corvina containing the works of the Bishop of
Marseilles.'** Diego Baldi made the critical edition of the full letter to Christoph
von Stadion, identified the works of the authors mentioned by Brassicanus, and
quoted the relevant passages.’ András Németh has also analysed the details of
this dedication, however his focus was on where the manuscripts mentioned by
Brassicanus can be found today.“® In light of the Corvina’s history however, the
more important for us is the publication history of the Salvianus work. Without
being able to take all the editiones in hand. ‘There is close to a hundred, for the pur¬
pose of this work they can be divided into three groups. Perhaps the most impor¬
tant are those which contain the description of the Corvina by Brassicanus in full.
‘The second group begins with the edition by Konrad Rittershausen (1560-1630)
published in 1611 and consists of those in which the publisher discloses the Sal¬
vianus biography written by him and the edition history of his works. In this it
is mentioned in a paragraph that the first publisher was Brassicanus who saw the
manuscript in Buda at the library of the Hungarian king. The third group includes
all those editions which do not contain any of these texts and do not mention the
fact that the editio princeps was done based on a Corvina codex. I find it important
to also analyse to whom publishers dedicated the books that mention the Corvina.
According to Diego Baldi the 1530 Brassicanus edition from Basel was not to
the satisfaction of all.“ He justifies his opinion with the fact of quick reissuing,
42 EpIsTOLAE Graecae, Haganoae, Johannes Setzer, 1528 (OSZK Ant. 5300.) — Csapopr 1973, Nr. 107.
43 SaLvIANus (ed. BrassicaNnus) 1530 (OSZK App. H. 224.) fol. a2r-a4v.; C£ BazDi 2011.
“4 Ty codex today: ONB Cod. Lat. 826 (Csapopt 1973, Nr. 583.)
145 BALDI 2011.
46 NÉMETH 2013; NÉMETH 2013a.
47 Barpı 2011, 153.
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