Naldo Naldi, Peter Jänichen, Martin Schmeizel and Mathias Belius

Abstract

The first contemporary description of the famous library of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary (1458–1490) Bibliotheca Corvina was by the Italian humanist, Naldo Naldi (1436–1513) Epistola de laudibus Augustae Bibliothecae. His text was first published (1731) based on the manuscript preserved in Toruń. The editor was the rector of the local protestant school, Peter Jänichen (1679–1738). This scholar was aware of the publication plan and its failure by Martin Schmeizel (1679–1747), a professor of the University in Leipzig, originated from Transylvania. At the same time the father of the Hungarian scientific text criticism, Matthias Belius (1684– 1749) got a copy of the Epistola of Naldi, and with a critical comparison he published his own version in 1737. The present study tries to explain a possible networking of the named scholars for realising the critical edition of Naldi’s text.