Page 79 [79]
6. Ihese are just my suggestions for further library history research, the
main work would be to read the whole Marsigli manuscript collection
and publish its Hungarian related aspects.
Soon after Marsigli, Jacobus Tollius (1633-1696) visited Buda. His first visit
to Hungary was in 1660, when he visited Miklós Zrínyi in Csáktornya.?9 The
publication of his travel letters was left to Heinrich Christian von Hennin (1658¬
1703).%1 The Hungarian Corvina literature was also aware of these travel letters,
but no one has published them as texts. Csaba Csapodi even added a Tollius text
to the source material of the Royal Library of Buda.*” They are worth reading, if
only for the style of the letters. In his first letter, written to the Mayor of Amster¬
dam, Nicolaus Witsen (1641-1717), on 12 February 1687, he recalls the corvinas
he saw in Wolfenbüttel, in the collection of Duke Augustus IT (1579-1666).
„tem Sallustii Catilina et Persius antiquissimae editionis, instar mss. Ostensi quoque
mihi codices aliquot mss. prima Corvinianae Budensis Bibliotheca spolia ubi ea urbs
vel a Solymanno, vel a Caesareanis occupata fuit, bonoque fato ab Augusto Duce
redemta atque hic recondite. In his Marsilii Ficini ad Matthiam Corvinum Epistolae et
opuscula permulta alia, si non edita, digna visa, quae ederentur. Fontii item Notae
in Persium, Orationes, Carmina et alia. Serico raro rubro involuti et intus imaginibus
elegantissimis Regis Mathiae, exornati codices magnificentiam vere Regiam prae
se ferunt. "s
The complete literature of the codices still preserved in Wolfenbüttel has been
processed by Edina Zsupän.%* She also suggested that Tollius is wrong in his use
of the word ‘spolia”, since Duke Augustus*® could not have received the volume
as a spoil of war. She (Zsupän) prefers the phrase a royal gift, “regalia munera’.°°
We can only remark that even the first publisher of the letter noticed the incor¬
rect use of the word “spolia’, as Hennin notes that he believes it was taken from
Buda in 1526:
‚9. Corvinianae Budensis Bibliothecae spolia. | Credo ex prima dissepatione anni 1526
omnes autem illi libri holoserico villoso rubro sunt vestiti. "7
In his second letter, written to the classical philologist Johann Georg Graevius
(1632-1703) (1 March 1687), he reports on the ancient coins he saw in Potsdam at
the court of the Prince of Brandenburg, and then continues:
360 Hausner-Kranıczay-Koväcs S. 1.-Monok-OrLovszkv, eds., Bibliotheca Zriniana, 1991, 33. The
literature on Tollius’s travels was summarised by Köv£r 2013. Some of his letters have also been
published in Hungarian (but nothing is connected with the Corvina): SZAMOTA, kiad., Régi utazások,
1891, 284-289.
361. ToLLius-HENNIN 1700; ToLLius-HENNIN 1714.
362 CsApoDpIi 1984, 26—27.
363 "ToLLrus-HENNIN 1700, 9.; ToLL1us-HENNIN 1714, 9.
364 FAB Cod. Guelf. 43. Aug. 2°. ZsupAN-HEITZMANN, hrsg., Corvina Augusta..., 2014, 31-41.
365 Aucust II der Jiingere, Herzog zu Brauschweig-Lüneburg (1579-1666).
366 ZsuPAN 2014, 283.
37 Totitius—HENNIN 1700, 25.; Tottrus-HENNIN 1714, 25.
77