Oldal 121 [121]
OCR
The book culture of the royal court of Buda was not limited to the decorative codices of the Bibliotheca Corvina, the series of symposiums and scholarly debates based on it. We know that there was a separate library for the court clergy near the royal chapel. Most of its volumes were undecorated paper codices, and its thematic focus differed significantly from the inventory preserved in the halls of the Bibliotheca Graeca and Bibliotheca Latina, consisting of mainly theological texts. The disintegration of the renowned collection at the beginning of the war against the Ottoman Turks (Battle of Mohacs, 1526, and the capture of Buda, 1541) caused a European echo, due in part to the commiserating texts of contemporary humanists. From then on, obtaining pieces from the former royal library was a tempting goal for bibliophile collectors. However, in the Hungarian Kingdom, and later in the Principality of Transylvania, the idea of restoring the unity of the Bibliotheca Corvina became linked to the restoration of the unity and independence of the Hungarian Kingdom. It became a national symbol, a symbol of the golden age of the Hungarians. The one who can actualise such a library, recovering as many corvina codices as possible, can provide the people of the country with the same independence, greatness, and (imagined) prosperity as King Matthias did. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the restoration of the unity of the Kingdom and the expulsion of the Ottomans were imagined in different ways. Everyone knew that it could not be achieved on their own, but there were differences in opinion about alliances. One example was a Catholic alliance under the leadership of the Habsburgs (Kingdom of Poland, Venice, Papal States), another idea was that the Protestant Principality of Transylvania unites the Hungarian Kingdom, allying itself with Protestant powers and states threatened by the Turks. In any case, each of the Hungarian political actors aimed to prove their worth by acquiring one (or many) corvina. Several Hungarian aristocratic families acquired codices, and the Transylvanian princes also sought to get ahold of them (Gábor Bethlen, György Rákóczi I., Mihály Apafi1.). The latter repeatedly tried to get the Porte to return these books, even for money. Similarly, the Jesuit order, the driving force behind the re-Catholicisation of the Hungarian Kingdom, made plans to acquire the codices from the Turks, showing that “here, we were able to recover them.”*”! However, after the Peace of Utrecht (1713), the Hungarian Kingdom became the territory of the Austrian Habsburgs, as did Transylvania (Grossfiirstentum Siebenbiirgen). The Bibliotheca Corvina, like the reign of King Matthias, became a symbol of Hungarian independence. To counteract this, the Habsburg court tried to make the library and its destiny part of the common cult of the Habsburg Empire since they were the ones who ousted the Turks. After 1686, when Buda, the medieval capital, was recaptured from the Turks, the catalogue of books found there*” was presented to the European scholarly public as the remains of the Bib/i1 Cr. Monox 2002, 33-41. 552 Priucius 1688. 119
