Original scientific paper
Manuscripts behind a Manuscript. Manuscript Sources of Antun Vrančić’s Work on the Fall of Buda
Péter Kasza
orcid.org/0000-0001-8909-9876
; Department for Classical Philology Original scientific paper and Neo-Latin Studies, University of Szeged
Abstract
In the spring of 1548 Antun Vrančić addressed a long letter to the Italian humanist Paolo Giovio reporting on the fall of Buda back in 1541. Vrančić’s letter is one of the longest and most detailed reports on the tragic events, which is odd if one considers the fact that Vrančić was not present during the siege of Buda and hence could not write from the position of an eyewitness.
In order to compose his own version, he must have been forced to consult different, (mostly) written sources. Last year I read a paper on the parallel texts of Vrančić and Giovio. In the meantime, I have investigated the Vrančić report further, and this year I focus on his possible sources. Though the fall of Buda triggered a significant response among contemporaries and numerous reports were composed, the number of possible sources of Vrančić can be narrowed, for those texts which were completed before 1548 and which could have been read by Vrančić need considering.
The rich manuscript collection Vrančić left behind makes our investigation seemingly easier. There are five texts reporting on the events in the collection. These are as follows: Obsidio Budae, a kind of diary of the siege; two letters written by Piotr Porębski, a Polish courtier of Queen Isabel; chapters of a strange chronicle entitled Epistola de perditione regni Hungarorum, composed and dedicated to Vrančić by Georgius Sirmiensis; and two memoirs written in Hungarian.
My intention is to show in what ways and to what extent Vrančić relied on these sources, what he contributed on his own, and, more comprehensively, how he composed a masterpiece of humanist historiography based on brief and rudimentary sources.
Keywords
Fall of Buda; 1541; Paolo Giovio; Antun Vrančić; humanist historiography
Hrčak ID:
257748
URI
Publication date:
22.5.2021.
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