Page 55 [55]
Up to this point the story is well known, and it is not surprising that the pub¬
lishers of the old texts disclose which manuscripts or editions they worked from.
‘The fact that the library of the 15th-century Hungarian king is again mentioned
in a non-first edition shows that the international reputation of the Bibliotheca
Corvina had not diminished over the centuries. Working with a manuscript or
a text from this collection bestows prestige on the author, and on the person to
whom the publication is offered. Presumably it is the latter reason that the Corvina
proveniencia is mentioned even when it is wholly irrelevant to the subject of the
book or only very indirectly relevant. For example, in the Latin etymological dic¬
tionary of Johannes Fungerus of Leuwarden (+1612), Heliodorus himself becomes
the phoenix when explaining the origin of the word “Phoenix”: his text was lost in
the “burning” of Buda and then resurrected by the publication, while the Latin
translation of the Greek text was born.
„Phoenix fuit Heliodorus, cuius libri Aetiopicae historiae decem erepti Bibliothecae
Budensis incendio, cum Solymannus vrbem incendio daret, sunt Basileae excusi,???
latine redditi a Stanislao Polono, et iterum editi Antuerpiae 2*2"2#
‘The fate of the Heliodorus text is also mentioned by Michael Neander in the
1565 edition of his Greek grammar,” he based it on Obsopoeus as well, but also
quotes others:
Perit etiam patrum nostrorum memoria, a Turcis direpta et vastata, celebris illa bibli¬
otheca Budae, quae regni Pannoniae caput est, a Serenissimo et laudato rege Matthia
Corvino, ex omni scriptorum genere et innumeris Graecis Hebraicisque voluminibus
instructa: quae quidem ille capta iam Constantinopoli, eversisque multis aliis amplis¬
simis Graeciae urbibus, ex media Graecia inaestimandis sumptibus coemerat [a]
[6] Vincentlius] Opsopoeus in praefatlionem] Heliodorum,”* Graecum historiae Aethi¬
opicae scriptorem, et ex Budensi tunc bibliotheca per militem quendam ereptulml.
Colnlradus Gesnerus in bibliotheca,?** et Vadianus in Epitome trium terrae partiulm]
pag. 6525 a causae amissora librorum.?*
29 HELıoDorus 1534.
40 HELIODoRUS 1556.
41 FUNGERUS 1605, 812.
42 NEANDER 1565. The other many editions do not have this preface.
Hetioporus 1534, a2v, a4r.
44 GESSNER 1545, a2v. — the other Bibliotheca editions were published after Neander’s book.
25 Vapianus 1534, 34.; Vapianus 1534a, 85.; VapIANus 1546, 66.; Vapıanus 1548, 66.
46 NEANDER 1565, 72. Referring to this quote ZoLNai K.—Firz 1942, 29.
243
53