Title

De divi Mathiae regis laudibus rebusque gestos dialogue

Context

The manuscript contains a dialogue on the acts and deeds of King Matthias of Hungary. King Matthias became king of Hungary from 1458-1490. Under his rule he maintained a royal library called the Bibliotheca Corviniana which was the second largest collection of books in Europe during the Renaissance period. This manuscript is included among the 216 extant codices from this collection. King Matthias married into Italian royalty and was closely tied to the court in Ferrarra, Italy. This codex was created between 1473 and 1475.

Authors

Ludovicus Carbo was the primary author of the manuscript. The dialogue in the manuscript is between Carbo and Zsigmond Ernuszt who was Bishop of the Hungarian city Pécs and had first-hand experience with the King. Carbo was an Italian poet born in Ferrara in 1435 who was a student of Janus Pannonius, a bishop of Pécs prior to Ernuszt’s appointment. Carbo and Janus didn’t get along as Carbo envied the talents and abilities of his teacher. Janus died while leaving Hungary when his involvement in a plot against the King was discovered. It is presumed that Carbo wrote this tribute to the King partially as a revenge on Janus and also to receive an invitation into the King’s royal court. Despite Carbo’s efforts with this tribute there is no record of Carbo being invited to King Matthias’ court.

Provenance

Handwritten notes in the codex (see 3v) point to it moving to Italy but there isn’t enough information to know when it moved from King Matthias’ library to Italy. In 1840 the first President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Count József Teleki, purchased the codex to include it in the academy’s library collections. The manuscript is currently owned by the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.