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tion of a classical or medieval text, or the variations of a text which might be in
Vienna. We want to mention only one example from this circle of research which
indicates that the journey to Buda was an open secret in scholarly circles. The
preparation of Josephus Flaviuss edition was an extended European collaboration.
Johann Andreas Schmidt (1652-1726) published the extensive correspondence on
this subject, ranging from Oxford to Paris and Vienna, in a separate volume in
1700.?9 Caspar Sagittarius (1643-1694), the Hebraic historian professor from the
University of Jena, also planned to publish the Jewish history of Josephus Flavius,
and many people wrote to him about it. Among them was the polyhistor legal
scholar Hermann Conring (1606-1681), who indicated that he hoped Lambeck
would bring a Josephus Flavius codex from Buda in good condition.*?
, IX. Martii 1666.
Recte dicis, non temere quem reperiri, qui aut velit possit iusta industria conferre
codices. Qui tale quid Viennae voluerit hactenus agere, novi neminem. Qui enim Ibi
literati habentur, exsibilant talia. Si Budensis Bibliothecae Corvinianae (quam totam
pridem interiisse credidi) reliquiae losephi melioribus codicibus fuerint instructae fec¬
eris operae praetium, si iuvenem aliquem philologiae deditum isthuc mittas ad codices
conferendos et excerpendas varias.’ *”
It is necessary to separately take into account those sources that repeat the
content of Lambeck’s published report,*? or even those who personally heard
the librarian’s account of his experiences in Buda, such as Edward Brown (1644—
1708),*** who travelled to Hungaria in 1669 and first published his travel diary
in 1673.°° From the perspective of disseminating the history of the Bibliotheca
Corvina in Europe, the important point here is not that Brown’s knowledge came
from Lambeck, (relatively few people could have read Lambeck’s seven-volume
Latin history of the libraries, or discovered in it which codices from Matthias’s
collection ended up in Vienna) but rather that the book of an English traveller,
already known amongst his contemporaries, became a bestseller. The first English
edition (1673) was followed by a French edition (1674),*”* translated and rewritten
by Edward Brown himself. In 1681 it was translated into Dutch,*”’ and in 1685?
the second English edizio came off the press. The German version was published in
320 SCHMIDT J. A. ed., Epistolae..., 1700.
521 1 note that, as far as we know today, no Josephus Flavius text exists as a Corvina. Csapopi 1973, 260
(Nr. 362.) lists a manuscript preserved in Prague as wrongly assigned to the library of Matthias.
32 ScHMIDT A. kiad., Epistolae..., 1700, 394.
»3 In the description of the individual codices he mentions that they come from Matthias’s library, but
also in a summary how they got to Vienna and his travel in 1666. See LamBEck 1665, 32-33, 108-109.;
Lamseck 1669, 787-788, 995-996, 989-996., LAMBECK-KoLLAR 1766, 68-70., LAMBECK-KOLLAR
1769, 939-954.
4 VıskoLcz 2009, 161-162.
35 Brown 1673 (about the Corvina here: 15-16.); BROwn-NEHRrıngG 1673, 1975; Hungarian translations:
SZAMOTA, kiad., Regi utazasok..., 1891, 297-425. (about the Corvina here: 308.), GömöRrı, kiad., Ango/
és skót utazók, 1994, 64—74. (about the Corvina here: 69.).
26 Brown 1674 (about the Corvina here: 22-23.)
#7 Brown 1681 (about the Corvina here, third volume, first chapter (Derde Bock, Eerste deel), 18-19.)
28 Brown 1685 (about the Corvina here: 8-9.)
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