Original scientific paper
On the Track of an Edition. New Sources for the Dating of Stephanus Brodericus’ Historia Verissima
Péter Kasza
orcid.org/0000-0001-8909-9876
; department for Classical Philology and Neo-Latin Studies, University of Szeged
Abstract
One of the most famous texts ever written by a humanist in the Kingdom of Hungary is the Historia verissima of Stephanus Brodericus (Stjepan Brodarić, ca 1480–1539). It is the only source we have describing the events of the decisive battle at Mohács, 1526, written by an eyewitness. Due to its unique status, the text of Brodericus has been analysed and interpreted many times by many scholars, first of all by historians, in the endeavour to reconstruct the course of the battle from the account of Brodericus. On the other hand, literary historians paid much less attention to the circumstances in which this celebrated text was written. According to the literature, Brodericus wrote the Historia verissima because he was charged by the Polish King to give an account about the defeat in which the nephew of King Sigismund had died, and because he himself wanted to defend his fellow-countrymen against Cuspinianus, who had accused the Hungarians of cowardice and treachery. It is generally accepted, too, that the Historia was written sometime in the spring of 1527 and that it was printed by Vietor in Cracow on 18 April 1527. This date has never been disputed, although not a single copy of this edition is preserved, and the only source that mentions this edition is the Janociana, a bibliography written in the second half of the 18th century, i.e. 250 years later. Recently, however, I came across a new source referring to the origin of the Historia, in the light of which the abovementioned date is called into question. In the first part of my paper I am going to prove that Brodericus wrote the Historia not earlier than 1528, from which it naturally follows that 1527 cannot be the year of its first edition. In the second part of the paper I am going to answer the question that obviously arises: when was Historia published for the first time? The answer to this question is of crucial importance because Brodericus’ work played a prominent role in the construction of the Mohács-concept; we can count on its impact on early modern historiography only after the date of the first edition.
Keywords
Stephanus Brodericus; Historia verissima; first edition
Hrčak ID:
138477
URI
Publication date:
30.4.2015.
Visits: 1.813 *