Johannes Thuróczy: Chronica Hungarorum

At the end of the 1480s and at the beginning of the 1490s, three Hungarian histories were written in the environment of the royal court, by Johannes Thurocz, Petrus Ransanus and Antonio Bonfini respectively. Johannes Thurocz’s chronicle, rooted in the tradition of medieval Hungarian chronicles, was the last piece of the genre. The author accomplished the career of the contemporaneous literates of Law and in the last years of his life was the judge of the court of the king’s personal presence. In his chronicle, he relates the history of the Hungarians from the beginning until the take of Wiener Neustadt in 1487. While the works of Ransanus and Bonfini were published first as manuscripts, and both in the royal court, we have no knowledge of such version of Thurocz’s chronicle: it was published twice in 1488 (in Brunn and Augsburg), and both times in print. The Augsburg edition had two versions of one of which – dedicated to the German audience – the description of the Austrian campaign is missing. Nevertheless, decorative copies were made for the king, of which two have been preserved: they were printed on parchment and the editor’s preface, for the first time in history, was made with gilded letters. Apparently, the engravings of both volumes were painted at the royal court. The same two illuminators worked on both volumes and shared the work the same way; besides, the hand of the more decisive master can be found in other works of the Buda workshop as well, including the Vatican Missal. The shaping of the initials of the chapters is the same in the two volumes, the rich gilding entirely covers the original initials of the printed book. (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.236

DATA SHEET

Shelfmark: Inc. 1143.
Country: Hungary
City: Budapest
Keeper location: National Széchényi Library
Author: János Thuróczy
Content: Chronica Hungarorum, 1488, Augsburg, Erhard Ratdolt, at the expense of Theobald Feger (Buda)
Writing medium: paper; the prolog on parchment
Possessor, provenience: Miklós Jankovich purchased it on March 24, 1823. It made its way to the Hungarian national library with the Jankovich collection in the 1830s (see the entry at the beginning of the book).
Language of corvina: Latin
Hungarian translation(s) of work(s) included in the corvina: A magyarok krónikája / Thuróczy János ; [... ford. és a ... jegyzeteket írta Bellus Ibolya, ... Kristó Gyula]. Budapest : Osiris, 2001 (Győr : Széchenyi).