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central, princely collections (library, archives), a school (preferably an institution of higher education), and a printing house was the intention of all the princes.**” This is also true of Zsigmond Bathory, who employed Istvan Szamosközy as an archivist at his court. It was during his reign that Janos Baranyai Decsi’s translation of Sallustius** was published, in the preface a late humanist translation programme can be found. In it Baranyai Decsi lists the ancient authors he thinks would be useful to translate into Hungarian. This programme was implemented by Gabor Bethlen (1613-1629) and Prince Gyorgy Räköczi I (1631-1648). The Corvina as an instrument of the representation of power was carefully discussed by Arpad Miké,® while the cult of Matthias, which was revived under Gabor Bethlen and György Rákóczi, is also known in great detail in the Hungarian literature.°* It is natural, therefore, that these princes, like Mihaly Apafi, who had very good relations with Turkish politicians, made a serious effort to obtain the codices that had been left in Buda and those that had been transported to Constantinople. Ignac Batthyäny’s (1741-1798) interest in corvinas was altogether different. (We should not forget that when he wrote the letter to Besangon, published in the Appendix, he was studying theology in Rome (1764), and only ended up in Transylvania in 1780.) He fits into the mid-18th century Aungaricum collecting habits of the Hungarian Kingdom and Transylvania. As bishop, he sent his librarian Imre Daniel (1754-1804)! to the Vatican to facilitate this activity; whose catalogue’ can to this day still be the starting point for the work there. Bishop Batthyäny’s activities in public institutional collections also correspond with the consistent activities of the Hungarian clergy in creating public collections. Paradoxically, they laid the foundations for public civic culture. ‘The Jesuit efforts to exchange the remains of the Corvina need a more serious explanation. In our opinion, there were two reasons behind it. Of course, the two concepts are in the same framework, and the second one is to emphasise the role of the Jesuit order in the restoration of the institutional system of Hungarian (that is, the Hungarian Kingdom’s) culture. Getting the Corvina could have been a symbolic achievement. The re-Catholicisation efforts that energetically unfolded at the beginning of the 17th century were mainly focused on the Hungarian aristocratic families, with great success it must be added. At the propaganda level, it would have been a very useful tool for propaganda if the books from Buda could have been obtained: the Jesuits would have participated in the spiritual care of the population under the Turkish conquest, at the same time “liberating” the books of the great king from captivity, culturally elevating the country, etc. But beyond this, we venture the hypothesis that there might have been more to it. 57 Cr. Kranıczay T. 1985a., KLanıczay T. 1985b.; KLanıczay T. 1991. 8 Baranyal Decsi—Kurcz, Az Caivs Crispus Salvstiusnac..., 1979. 539 Mixó 1999. 540 COMPREHENSIVELY: TARNÓC 1978.; BIrskEY 1980. 541 MArza A. 2020.; MArza A. 2020a. 542, PUBLISHED GRAFINGER 2002, I, 316-324. 116
