Trapezuntius: Rhetoricorum libri

This type of decoration is certainly a novelty in Francesco da Castello’s art. The Florentine manuscripts in the collections of the royal library of Buda could add inspiration. It is worth noticing that as opposed to the choirbooks made for the San Sisto monastery of Piacenza, the ornaments here are of gold and the cover paint is used for the background.
This manuscript is one of the four Corvinas returned to Hungary in 1869 as a donation by Sultan Abdul Aziz (also Saint Augustine: City of God, Polybius: History of Rome, Comedies by T. Maccius Plautus). (Edina Zsupán)

Source: The Corvina Library and the Buda Worskhop: [National Széchényi Library, November 6, 2018 –February 9, 2019] A Guide to the Exhibition; introduction and summary tables: Edina Zsupán; object descriptions: Edina Zsupán, Ferenc Földesi; English translation: Ágnes Latorre, Budapest: NSZL, 2018, p. 80

DATA SHEET

Shelfmark: Cod. Lat. 281.
Country: Hungary
City: Budapest
Keeper location: National Széchényi Library
Author: Georgius Trapezuntius
Content: Rhetoricorum libri
Writing medium: parchment
Number of sheets: 121 fol.
Sheet size: 366 × 273 mm
Place of writing: Hungary (Buda?, Esztergom?)
Date of writing: ca. 1470
Scriptor: Originating from the same scriptor as Wolfenbüttel, HAB, Cod. Guelf. 69. 9 Aug. 4o.
Illuminator: Francesco da Castello
Place of illumination: Buda
Date of illumination: between 1488 and 1490
Crest: King Matthias' Hungarian and Bohemian royal coat-of-arms; Francesco da Castello, in the late 1480s
Possessor, provenience: Abdülaziz, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire gave it as a present to Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria in 1869.
Binding: no binding, only wooden boards; one patch from the original (purple) velvet corvina binding; painted-gilded edge, made in Buda (probably in the late 1480s)
Language of corvina: Latin
Condition: Restored: NSZL Dezső Sasvári 1940; Ágnes Kálmán-Horváth, 1989
Hungarian translation(s) of work(s) included in the corvina: None