Taddeo Ugoleto’s Marginal Notes on his Brand-new Crastonus Dictionary

Serving as royal librarian and tutor to János Corvinus, Matthias’ illegitimate son and heir, Taddeo Ugoleto played a key role in defining the general character and the actual holdings of Matthias’ library. Although Ugoleto was widely acknowledged as a humanist of deep education by his contemporaries, he appears to us as a ghost figure, since apart from his text editions and a few letters, none of his writings have survived. This makes the notes and dictionary entries he put down propria manu on the pages of his copy of the Lexicon Graeco-Latinum edited by Johannes Crastonus in 1483 and now preserved in Vienna (ÖNB Ink. X. E. 9.) even more precious and significant. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, through a detailed examination of his glosses and additions, an attempt will be made to gauge Ugoleto’s knowledge of Greek and philological erudition. Secondly, these notes also allow us to make certain assumptions about his readings, map his fields of interest, and even identify a couple of books, presumably all belonging to the royal library, that must have been available to him while writing

Das Rätsel der Sappho-Corvina – Zur Interpretation des Lobgedichts von Naldo Naldi auf die Bibliothek von Matthias Corvinus

Naldo Naldi’s encomiastic letter poem in four books, De laudibus augustae bibliothecae carmina, provides the fullest description of Matthias Corvinus’s library. His list of authors, however, includes a couple of baffling items such as Sappho’s poems, which, according to our present knowledge, did not survive Byzantine times. Concerning the possible availability of the Lesbian poetess’s works in Buda, scholarly opinions differ considerably. Those ones who take Naldi’s description basically reliable would at least leave open the possibility of a real Sappho manuscript belonging to the Corvinian library. Others are more sceptical. Some of them ascribe the inclusion of her works into the catalogue to the panegyrical mode of the poem and the flattering attitude Naldi shows towards the king. A most influential interpretation considers the whole encomium as a poetic vision about the ideal humanistic library, a fictional construction which should be understood on its own fictional terms. This paper offers a different approach and explanation for Sappho’s presence in Naldi’s poem and the Royal Library in Buda, and it also explores the literary and theoretical context into which the Florentine poet’s canon-forming encomium can be placed

Bonfini Héródianosz-fordításáról

Before entering Matthias’ service, Antonio Bonfini dedicated to the king, among his other literary products, his freshly made translation of Herodian as well. The manuscript presented, which was partly copied by the author himself, is now kept in Salzburg (UB M II. 135). The text, however, is preserved in another copy (Vat. Ross. 483), neglected by most specialists of the field. This paper has a threefold aim. First, it examines the textual relationship of the two versions. Second, it analyizes the value of Bonfini’s – now lost – Greek original, as it can be extrapolated on the basis of the Latin translation, in constituting Herodian’s text, whether it contained readings not preserved in other manuscripts. Third, it compares Bonfini’s translation to that of Poliziano, which was made roughly at the same time or slightly later, but independently of his much less known colleague’s version

A görög költők tízes kánonja a Corvina-könyvtárban : Naldo Naldi De laudibus augustae bibliothecae carmina c. művének értelmezéséhez

A tanulmány „A három ősi vátesz a Corvina-könyvtárban” című írás folytatása, amely szintén a Corvina-könyvtár egyetlen kortárs leírását elemzi, a firenzei Naldo Naldinak a királyi könyvgyűjtemény nagyságát méltató költeményét. Ennek a cikknek a középpontjában annak a tíz görög költőnek a csoportja áll, akik Naldi leírása szerint a királyi könyvespolcok legelőkelőbb helyeit foglalták el. A tanulmány arra a kérdésre próbál választ adni, honnan származik a legkiválóbbaknak ez a tízes kánona, és milyen megfontolásból eshetett éppen ezekre az alkotókra Naldi választása. A cikk azt a magyarázatot igyekszik valószínűsíteni, hogy Naldi elsősorban Ficino közvetlen és közvetett hatására jelöli ki a tíz legkiválóbb görög alkotó személyét, Ficino pedig Platón költészettel kapcsolatos nézeteit követve és költőkre vonatkozó értékítéleteit pontosan átvéve fogalmazza meg gondolatait a görög irodalomról. Naldi görög költőkről adott portréiban így a korabeli firenzei újplatonikus költészetszemlélet jellegzetes gondolatai testesülnek meg. Költeménye fontos dokumentuma a görög (és római) irodalom 15. századi recepciójának, mely kiegészíti a korszak első irodalomtörténeti és poétikai kezdeményeit, amelyek Poliziano, Landino és Fonzio nevéhez köthetők