sS
1 About the culture-historical relevance of Thurzós: Kurt Bathelt: Die Familie Thurzo in Kunst und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas (1450–1640).
In: Deutsche Monatshefte. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Gegenwart des Ostdeutschtums, 1940/3–4. 115–127.
2 Monographic processing relevance of Thurzós in the framework of the book culture is under preparation by: Helena Saktorová:Turzovské knižnice v ranom novoveku(manuscript of the book is prepared for publishing).
3 Gabriella Erdélyi: Egy kivételes karrier Mohács előtti kezdetei: Bethlenfalvi Thurzó Elek. In: R. Várkonyi Ágnes emlékkönyv születésének 70. év-fordulója ünnepére. Ed.: Péter Tusor. Budapest : ELTE BTK, 1998, 118–132.
4 The first date is from year 1533: A magyar könyvkultúra múltjából. Iványi Béla cikkei és anyaggyűjtése. Ed.: János Herner and István Monok.
Szeged, 1983, 34. Nr. 51. (Adattár XVI–XVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez. 11. / ADATTÁR 11.); About Péter Pázmány:
A magyar könyvkultúra múltjából. Iványi Béla cikkei és anyaggyűjtése Ed.: János Herner and István Monok. Szeged, 1983, ADATTÁR 11.
210–211. Nr. 335; Pál Gulyás: A könyv sorsa Magyarországon.III. kötet. Budapest, 1961, 177.
5 Béla Iványi: Egy magyar főúr könyvtára a XVI. században. In: Magyar Könyvszemle, 1909, 94–95; the same article in: ADATTÁR 11.
480–490.
6 We know just the signature of the lost catalogue. Cf.: ADATTÁR 11. 530. The same Szaniszló Thurzó is known as the patron of Lutheran theolog in Szered - Miklós Pálházi Göncz. Pálházi Göncz translated to Hungarian language the work of Wittenberg book printer Georg Rhaw, which was published in Keresztúr in printing house of I. Farkas, sponsored by Nádasdy family (RMNy 1090).
pedagogue and physician, later was prepared for military and diplomatic career at the court of the Austrian Archprince Ernest. In 1585 he settled down on the family estate at Biccse, that was along with Orava estate in his father’s7possession. Since 1585 György used the title of hereditary Head of Orava County, since 1598 he was Royal Councillor. He manifested his personal abilities in military cam-paigns against the Ottomans. This was the reason he was appointed captain of the pre-Danubian troops in 1601, at the same time he became com-mander of the Nové Zámky military crew, in 1606 he was promoted to the rank of Count. His promi-nent social position of the country’s magnate was strenghtened in 1609 when after István Illésházy’s (1541–1609) death he became Hungarian Palatine.
During this period, marked by complex domestic and foreign political events such as uprisings of the nobility against the Habsburgs and first of all the Ottoman danger, he took part in important diplomatic negotiations. His authority helped to keep peace in the country as well as to make rela-tive peace with the Ottomans. György Thurzó sig-nificantly entered history of the Evangelical Church in Hungary and was considered its laic head. He supported the development of Protestantism, par-ticipated in forming the church organisation and co-acted at establishing Evangelical parishes and church schools, mainly in the territory of today’s Slovakia. He had great connections Wittenberg university, where with his support studied many of students. His son Imre Thurzó (1598–1621), due to the circumstances became the rector of this in-stitution in his young age.8Despite his clear reli-gious orientation, György Thurzó remained loyal to the Habsburgs and enjoyed Emperor Rudolph II’s, later Matthias II’s confidence.
Palatine György Thurzó ranked among enlight-ened noblemen of the period. He kept contact
with outstanding scholars in the country as well as abroad, supported spreading humanistic thoughts and the development of Renaissance art. With his interest in humanistic learning that had traditions in the wider family environment, he created a sig-nificant cultural centre at his court in Biccse. At the court there lived outstanding poets and writ-ers such as János Rimay (1569/73–1631), native to Alsósztregova, János Fanchali Jób (?–1613), col-lector of Slovak and Hungarian poems of his con-temporaries, Eliáš Láni (1570–1618) who operated here as a court preacher. The court was visited by Albert Szenci Molnár (1574–1634), the royal his-torian Elias Berger (1562–1644) and others. Under the Thurzós, their court in Biccse gained political importance as well. As the Thurzós held high state offices, many prominent personalities of Hunga-rian political, cultural and spiritual life used to stay at their court9.
Integral part and the pride of the Biccse Renais-sance court was Palatine Thurzó’s rich library.
This large and unique collection had been proba-bly formed in a wider family library as also other members of the family owned precious book col-lections and were known as patrons of literature, learning and culture at all not only in domestic but also in foreign relations. The library was placed in rooms situated at the southwest rotunda of Biccse Castle, where György Thurzó had his studies. In one of the rooms there is an inbuilt wardrobe pre-served up today in which were probably kept the most valuable books and documents. This Renais-sance book collection in Biccse Castle was not dead inventory or just accessories of the Thurzó court.
György Thurzó manifested himself as a purposeful collector, he developed his library systematically, in accordance with his professional interests. In 1611 he charged his Kassa secretary Samuel Hamel to arrange the library and prepare its catalogue10.
7 KOČIŠ, Jozef. Bytčiansky zámok.Martin: 1974, Osveta,
8A Thurzó család és a wittenbergi egyetem. Dokumentumok és a rektor Thurzó Imre írásai 1602–1624.Ed.: Edit Dományházi, Zsuzsa Font, Gizella Keserű, Miklós Latzkovits. Szeged : JATE, 1989. (Fontes rerum Scholasticarum I.)
9 László Sziklai: Thurzó György udvara késő reneszánsz irodalmi és tudományos központ. Budapest. Helikon, 1971, 393–400.
10 Helena Saktorová: Knižnica palatína Juraja Turzu. In: Kniha `81.Martin: Matica slovenská, 1982, 73–82; Mária Ludányi: Könyvtárrendezés Thurzó György nádor udvarában 1611–ben. Collectanea Tiburtiana.Ed.: Géza Galavics, Bálint Keserű, János Herner. Szeged, 1990, 271–277.
(Adattár XVI–XVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez. 10.)
The catalogue entitled Index geminus bibliothecae, ab Illustrissimo Comite ac domino, domino Georgio Thurzo Comite supremo ac Perpetuo de Arwa, Regni Hungariae Palatino, Judice Cumanor/um/, Sacr/atis-simae/ Reg/iae/ maiestatis Locumtenente et intimo Consilario etc. Comparatae, Pro unico eoque charis-simo filio, Magnifico Comite Emerico Thurzo de Arwa, in tutis ac fidis librorum castris tum mili-tante: Quorum alter Alphabeticum Auctorum ordi-nem, alter situ set collacationis seriem continent.
Conscriptus in arce Bytchensis, Anno DIVo PaLa-tIno LaVs CresCat. LaVs qVoqVe Nato; CresCFat Io NatVs VIVat VterqVe DiV is stored in the Hun-garian National Archives in Budapest.11The chrono-gram 1610 is embedded in the catalogue’s title but as can be seen from György Thurzó’s correspon-dence with12, the catalogue was compiled in 1611.
The text of the manuscript catalogue documents that it was not written by the only individual but there occur some additions in it written by an-other hand and in anan-other time. The catalogue comprises ca 450 entries listed first alphabetically by authors or titles of works and in the second se-ries by book size. The form of single book entse-ries in the catalogue is of the period, in many cases it contains only brief data on the print, many times the author is omitted, sometimes only the title is given but the publisher’s data are omitted almost regularly that makes bibliographic identification of a work extremely difficult.
Palatine György Thurzó’s library formed a rich collection of works of significant humanistic au-thors and scholars of domestic and foreign prove-nance. It comprised works of outstanding authors from the area of theology, history, philosophy, law, medicine, geography, cosmography, astronomy, bot-any and other scientific areas of the period and it concentrated many literary monuments of Euro-pean importance. Part of the collection were nu-merous and rare editions of classical writings as an inspiration source of humanism and the Renais-sance. A special group of the collection consisted
Reformation literature of Luther’s orientation of domestic provenance the publishing of which was supported by György Thurzó and later his wife Erzsébet Czobor. Integral part of the library was also occasional poetry written by Hungarian poets who celebrated his patron Palatine György Thurzó in their works. Students supported by him at schools and universities also dedicated their works to the palatine. An important source of knowl-edge referring to important events in family, pub-lic and political life of the Thurzós are calendars from the years 1596–1616, stored in Biccse Castle, now a seat of the State Regional Archives, in which are diary records of the palatine and his son Imre Thurzó. From a typological point of view, the li-brary of György Thurzó comprised manuscripts, incunables, the core of the library was formed by 16thcentury prints and some items from the 17th century. Naturally, the library of Palatine György Thurzó has not been preserved as a whole but do-ing research into it we succeeded in identifydo-ing a torso of the library. We applied the fact that books of the collection were marked with possessor’s iden-tification features – a manuscript signature and supralibros. On the title page of each Thurzó’s print dominates an authentic manuscript record starting with a Latin sentence expressing György Thurzó’s creed Vive ut vivas followed by his sig-nature written by tiny handwriting and comple-mented by a year of acquiring. The supralibros contains Thurzó’s name initials and his political and social ranks, it is stamped on the front book cover and has variant forms, the best-known of which are: C G T R H P[Comes Georgius Thurzo Regni Hungariae Palatinus], G T D B F[Georgius Thurzo de Bethlenfalva]. The year when the book was acquired is generally part of the supralibros.
During our research we identified Slovak, Hun-garian, Croatia, Romanian Libraries two 15th cen-tury rare manuscripts, four incunables and ap-proximately 150 items of 15th–17thcentury prints.
The identified prints themselves and possessor’s
11 Edition: ADATTÁR 11. 505–535
12 It is deposited in the State regional archives in Biccse. (Štátny oblastný archýv v Bytči)
records preserved in them create a unique data-base for the knowledge of the library’s destinies.
The library was developed through gifts of the palatine’s relatives, in 1587 his tutor Imre Forgács (1539–1599) donated to him a work of the an-cient historian Alexander Appianus (Basel 1577), works of the Italian humanistic historian Paolo Giovio (Basel 1577) and a history of Poland by the historian Marcin Kromer (Cologne 1589). Dániel Kubinyi donated to György Thurzó as his patron Harmann Schedel’s Chronicle of the World (Nu-remberg 1493). György Thurzó’s library was well-known not only in the family circle and close friends but gained reputation of significant personalities of Hungarian cultural and spiritual life who visit-ed Thurzó’s court in Biccse. The collection was enriched also by a donation of Demeter Náprágyi, Bishop of Kalocsa (1556–1619). He sent Thurzó a rare manuscript from the second half of the 15th century – a tractate on the wife’s duties by the Venetian patrician Francesco Barbaro De re uxoria.
On both pages of the first folio there is a manu-script record by György Thurzó and a donation manuscript note by the Archbishop of Kalocsa for Palatine György Thurzó dated 1611: “Vive ut vi-vas. Comes Georgius Thurzo Comes perpetuus de Arva Regni Hungariae Palatinus 1611,” “Illustrissimi ac magnifici domini domini Comitis Georgij Thurzo de Bethlehem falva Regni Hungariae Palatini Biblio-thecae Bitsensi Inscripsit Demeterius Napragi Arciep.
Colocensis... Anno Dni MDCIX”, as well as a man-uscript and printed book plate of the Illésházys from the 18th century: “Comitis Josephi Illeshazy Cathalogo inscriptus 1728.” Today the codex is preserved in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest13. György Thurzó also owned one of first works about Hungarian history from the 15th century compiled in the spirit of the Renaissance.
Its author was Petrus Ransanus, Bishop of Lucerne and Ambassador of Naples to Hungary (1428–1492) who wrote a survey of Hungarian history entitled
Epitome rerum Hungaricum14 for King Matthias Corvinus. First the book was part of the royal li-brary, later Vladislav II Jagello became its owner, followed by Tamás Bakócz, Archbishop of Eszter-gom and Palatine György Thurzó: “Comes Georgius Thurzo regni Hungariae Palatinus. 1611.” The last owner of the codex after the Illésházys was Miklós Jankovich in 1830. In 1835 the codex became part of the National Széchényi Library’s collection in Budapest.
It is impossible to give an in-depth account of the library contents in this paper and present all known facts about the complex history of the book collection. On the basis of the preserved set of books from the library of György Thurzó we can state that most books he acquired as the palatine and most supralibros and manuscript records are dated 1611. It is possible, however, that in 1611 during the stocktaking, György Thurzó ordered to bind a major group of prints and stamp supral-ibros on the bindings or to mark older bindings with supralibros in which the palatine rank of the collector is encoded.
After György Thurzó’s death his library was di-vided among his heirs – his wife, daughter and the only son Imre Thurzó as can be seen from posses-sor’s records in the preserved books. Owing to branched family ties of the Thurzó family, some portions of the library found themselves in fami-ly collections of the Esterházys, the Jakusics, the Thökölys and by the marriage of the palatine’s daughter Helen with Gáspár Illésházy (1593–1648) in 1614, many precious prints enriched the Illésházy family library in Máriatölgyes.
*
The Illésházys, originally a yeoman family from Csallóköz, were granted a coat of arms for their merits in political, public and spiritual life of Hun-gary and ranked among significant noble families
13 Emma Bartoniek: Catalogus Bibliothecae Musei Nationalis Hungarici. XII. Codices manus scripti Latini. Vol. I. Codices Latini Medii Aevi.
Budapestini, 1940, 271–272, Nr. 294.
14 BARTONIEK 1940, 222. Nr. 249; Csaba Csapodi: The Corvinian Library. History and Stock.Budapest, 1973, (Studia Humanitatis, 1.) Nr. 565.
in Hungary. The family members were hereditary heads of Trencsén and Liptó counties and sporad-ically of Orava county as well. Besides, they reached high positions in the country administra-tion and had influence on social and political life in the country. They held various highest offices such as Hungarian Palatine, County Vice-head and Head, diplomat, Hungarian Chamber Councillor and military ranks. Besides political, military and public activities they were also engaged in cultural life. They manifested themselves as generous pa-trons of writers, supported art, science and learn-ing. They founded schools, organized founda-tions for students who studied at home as well as abroad and they devoted themselves to the devel-opment of bookprinting in their area. The Illés-házys owned large estates in the territory of Slo-vakia. Besides Trencsén Castle, their main residence was a manor house with an adjacent park in Dub-nic (Máriatölgyes, Trencsén County)15, built by Gáspár Illésházy (1593–1648) where the family permanently settled at the end of the 17thcentury.
The Dubnic residence was the place where the family met significant personalities of cultural, spiritual and political life of Hungary. The Illés-házys had an excellent education they gained at domestic schools and foreign universities. Part of this prestigious cultural environment was also their precious family library. The rich book collection comprising some 6 000 volumes in 1835, was de-veloped by almost all members of the family and each collector left a lasting impression on it. Be-sides active acquisition marked by professional and personal interests of the collectors, the library grew larger through gifts from well-known and
signifi-cant personalities of the country and many books became part of the library through family rela-tions.16The foundations of the library were laid by István Illésházy (1541–1609). He became famous as a fighter against the Ottomans, as a politician he was King Matthias II’s follower and in 1608 he became the first Lutheran to be elected Hungari-an palatine. He supported the Reformation Hungari-and evangelical schools in his surroundings and many of the works was published thanks his support.17 These activities realised also his wife Anna Pálffy.18 He manifested himself as a humanistic scholar, was active in literature and left several manuscript works. His book collection is documented in pre-served printed materials from sessions of the Hun-garian diet in Pozsony entitled Articuli Posoniensis István Illésházy was given as a participant of the diet in the years 1596–1599 and 1601. They are assigned to Palatine István by a manuscript note, having the signature of King Rudolph II, the seal and signature of a high church dignitary as well as that of a Royal Chamber officer. Today they are stored in the collections of the National Széchényi Library (Országos Széchényi Könyvtár) in Buda-pest. In the 1603 was István Illésházy implicated in the crime about an affront of Majesty. He lived in Polish exile. He wrote his wife and in this letters are the meanings about the literature, which he red.19 At confiscation of his property November 11, 1603 was written both books, which were de-posited on Trencsén castle.20 On the base of this list we can characterise cultural horizon of Palatin as the representative of Lutheranism. Similary as the György Thurzó he actively watched the polemics in the framework of Luthers theology, it’s possible
15 Eva Frimmová: Vzťah Ilešháziovcov ku knižnej kultúre. In: Kniha 2000–2001. Martin: Slovenská národná knižnica, 2002, 415–428.
16 Katarina Babičová–Vlastimil Hábl–Daniela Učniková: Ilešháziovci. Rodová zbierka obrazov. Trenčín, Trenčianske múzeum, Laugar, 1998.
17 There belongs for example also thesis of Leonard Mokoschinus with the topic of Old Testament, which was published in Wittenberg in the year 1594 (RMK III. 938).
18 Like the widow of János Krusics she supported of Péter Bornemissza at publishing of the work Evangéliumok és epistolák(Detrekő, 1581, RMNy 486), than as the wife of István Illésházy in the year 1602 she suported the publishing of the Aegidius Hunnius´s work (it was translated by Tamás Esterházy and István Kürti), which was published at Johann Manlius’ workshop in Sárvár (RMNy 888).
19Pálffy Kata leveleskönyve.Ed.: Péter Ötvös, István Monok. Szeged, 1991. (Adattár XVI–XVIII. századi szellemi mozgalmaink történetéhez. 30.) with complete bibliography of literature to Illésházy family history.
20 84 book titles. ADATTÁR 11. 149–151. Nr. 229.
to say, that he had actual knowledges about opin-ions and meaning of Wittenberg orthodox the-ologs, about meanings of Tübingen, Heidelberg university professors, which was from the point of view contemporary comprehension opened, both also about Irenic spiritual courses. It is logic, that his life fate got him to ideology of Anthic Stoicizm, which reflects the works of Neostoicizm represen-tatives preserved in his library.21
Gáspár Illésházi (1593–1648), a nephew of István Illésházy went on to develop the library. Gáspár Illés-házi, as many other members of the family, made a significant career. He inherited the rank of head of Trencsén, Liptó and Orava counties, he became imperial and royal councillor. Between the years 1626–1648 he led the Orava compossessorate. He was Gábor Bethlen’s (1580–1629) follower, took part in negotiations that resulted in signing a peace treaty in Nikolsburg. After Betlen’s death he joined the Habsburgs.
Gáspár Illésházi (1593–1648), a nephew of István Illésházy went on to develop the library. Gáspár Illés-házi, as many other members of the family, made a significant career. He inherited the rank of head of Trencsén, Liptó and Orava counties, he became imperial and royal councillor. Between the years 1626–1648 he led the Orava compossessorate. He was Gábor Bethlen’s (1580–1629) follower, took part in negotiations that resulted in signing a peace treaty in Nikolsburg. After Betlen’s death he joined the Habsburgs.