Chalcidius Altividi de immortalitate animae liber
There are two Corvinas in the collections of National Szechenyi Library that before King Matthias had been owned by Gyorgy Hando grand provost of Pecs and archbishop of Kalocsa (cca. 1430‒80). Researchers discovered long ago an unidentified coat of arms underneath Matthias’s that would not be recognized until recently when on a stamp of a certificate, the previously unknown coat of arms of the prelate was specified. Gyorgy Hando is the third Hungarian collector beside Johannes Vitez and Janus Pannonius whom the renowned Florentine book trader Vespasiano da Bisticci remembers in his biography as a notable customer. He dates Hando’s big purchase of 300 manuscripts to the year 1469 which is not certain, but we do know that the deal took place somewhere in the second half of the 1460s when the Hungarian prelate accomplished a diplomatic mission. Hando then built a library in Pecs to which, in Bisticci’s words, “he took books of several areas of science. He collected more than three hundred books and installed the room accordingly. He entrusted the library to a priest whom he paid generously for taking care of the books and opening and closing the library every day”. Out of Hando’s remarkable library, entirely unknown for long, seventeen items have been identified so far. (Ferenc Földesi. The entry written for the guide to the exhibition was made on the basis of Dániel Pócs’ description below: The CORVINA LIBRARY and the Buda Workshop. Exhibition Catalog. (Publication in progress.) Budapest: NSZL, 2019, Cat. H5)
DATA SHEET
Shelfmark: Cod. Lat. 418.Country: Hungary
City: Budapest
Keeper location: National Széchényi Library
Author: Chalcidius Altividius
Content: De immortalitate animi
Writing medium: parchment
Number of sheets: 55 fol.
Sheet size: 260 × 186 mm
Place of writing: Florence
Date of writing: between 1450 and 1470
Place of illumination: Florence
Date of illumination: between 1450 and 1470
Crest: King Matthias' Hungarian and Bohemian royal coat-of-arms; "first" heraldic painter, Buda, late 1480s; under it, the coat-of-arms of György Handó
Possessor, provenience: György Handó; King Matthias Hunyadi; Johannes Fabri, Bishop of Vienna (comp. bookplates); St. Nicolas College of the University of Vienna (1540); University of Vienna; Imperial Court Library, Vienna (1756); in line with the Venice Agreement (signed on November 27, 1932), it was returned to National Széchényi Library.
Binding: original blind-tooled leather binding made in Florence
Language of corvina: Latin
Condition: Restored: NSZL, 1989
Hungarian translation(s) of work(s) included in the corvina: None