Abstracts

The history of the corvinian books is long and controversial. Their traces have been followed all over the world, so that it has been possible to virtually reconstruct a meaningful portion of the extraordinary collection that Mattia Hunyadi put together. Tracking the origin of the seventeen codexes which ended up in Estense Library is quite simple: they had been bought in a single lot by the Duke Alfonso II d’Este in Venice, through his ambassador, Girolamo Faletti, and then sent to Ferrara. However, at present times, they are only fifteen, and they have been showed at the exhibition in Modena in 2002. Now, they are being examined one more time, with the aim to add some new insight.

November 27, 1926: Emperor Charles VI with a real feudal investiture assigns the committees of Arad and Jenő, a large territory of two hundred and ten between lands, villages and other places, to the Duke of Modena Rinaldo, faithful vassal, "cum iure regio, iure patronatus et iure gladii ". Behind this important acquisition hides the patient and wise Este diplomatic activity, aimed at obtaining compensation for the damages suffered during the war of the Spanish succession, and in particular for the destruction of the fortress of Brescello in 1704, as well as for the failure to return Comacchio, occupied by imperial troops for seventeen years and then returned to the papal state in 1725. The architect of this diplomatic success is the Este minister at the imperial court in Vienna, bishop Giuliano Sabbatini, who began his dazzling political career in these years. Originally from Fanano nel Frignano, entered the Order of the Piarist Fathers, he was first entrusted with delicate tasks of trust by the Este ruler. Immediately after, he was appointed Minister and finally Councilor of State, with the task of advocating the interests of the Este house at the most important European courts, Vienna, Paris, Dresden, and Turin.

On the occasion of the acquisition by the Este state of the committees of Arad and Jenő, the bishop Sabbatini plays a leading role, as also testified by L. A. Muratori in his Estensi Antiquities. And it is Giuliano Sabbatini who in 1727, the year following the imperial decree, occupied the territories in Hungary on behalf of the Este ruler. In exchange for the precious services rendered, Duke Rinaldo endeavors to get him the Bishopric of Apollonia and the Archpriesthood of Carpi, precisely in 1726. From the papers of the private archive of the Sabbatini family, deposited in the State Archives of Modena, from the correspondence with L.A. Muratori, and in the encrypted dispatches included in the Correspondence Fund of the Ambassadors of the Este Secret Archives, some signals relating to the diplomatic activity carried out by Sabbatini for this affair can be found, which deserve to be investigated with a broader research.

Taddeo Lardi served the Este dinasty in Hungary during 25 years (1487-1512), having interrupted his stay for a couple of years. In his more than seventy letters written from Hungary (and today conserved at Modena State Archives) he not only presents the main events of the period (the arrival of the new queen, the anti turkish war, a.s.o.) but tells also details of everyday life at Esztergom, Buda and Eger. The lecture, linked to the forthcoming publication of his letters, has the goal to present the style, the language, the role, the personality of Taddeo Lardi (buried in Košice, Slovakia) and offers insight to the contents of some of his letters.

Giovanni Maria Parenti the member of the legacy of Ferrara arriving to the Hungarian primatial capital in 1486 has been described his experiences with the following terms: "Ha etiam tante reliquie che è cosa stupenda brazzi d’arzente e d’oro, cristalli ce è tal calice che vale più de 1000 ducati ce son pianete col resto da cantar messa in pontificale cariche de perle tanto argente non ha Milano, Cremona ne Ferrara insieme. Io non ne potria dir tanto che più non ne fusse vale innumerabile migliara de ducati." Based on the words written by Parenti the presentation aims to analyse the stock of the liturgical textiles in the Esztergom Treasury concerning the end of the 15th, and the beginning of the 16th century according to both written sources and objects in the collection of the Cathedral Treasury of Esztergom. The presence of pearl and or nué embroidered chasubles are studied in relationship with the terms used in the coeval Hungarian inventories.