Poeta Christianus: Genealogiae deorum

Judged upon the writing style and the parchment quality, the manuscript was made probably in Johannes Vitez’s environment in the late 1460s. The copyist is the same as of the following manuscript of our exhibition: Janus Pannonius’s translation of Plutarch (Leipzig, Universitätbibliothek, Rep. I.80).
Researchers most recently have identified the author of the first work with a poet previously referred as “Poeta Christianus”. The 473-verse poem is an excerpt of the 9th volume of the ten-volume didactic poem Novus Graecismus written by Konrad von Mure (1210‒81). Interestingly, the excerpt went inherited also individually, as beside this Corvina, there is knowledge of its presence in five more codices at different libraries.
During a restoration in 1910, a spectacular error was made in the volume’s unique binding: the tables were removed, and when they were put back again, the bookbinder, unfamiliar with the Corvinas, followed the structure of modern books and placed the rear binding table (with the title) to the front, and the first binding table to the back. (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. 202

DATA SHEET

Shelfmark: Cod. Lat. 423.
Country: Hungary
City: Budapest
Keeper location: National Széchényi Library
Author: 1. Konrad von Mure (magister Chuonradus, 1210‒1281) 2. Cassius Dio; 3. Baptista Gvarinus
Content: 1. Novus Graecismus liber IX., 691‒1164; 2. Oratio M. Antonii; 3. Oratio Baptiste Gvarini in inchoando foeliciter Ferrariensi gymnasio habita anno Christi MCCCCLIII …
Translator: 2. Baptista Gvarinus
Writing medium: parchment
Number of sheets: 39 fol.
Sheet size: 282 × 175 mm
Place of writing: Hungary (Buda? Esztergom?)
Date of writing: ca. 1470 ?
Scriptor: Probably a Hungarian scriptor who had worked in the vicinity of Iohannes Vitéz and Regiomontanus.
Possessor, provenience: Johannes Cuspinianus (see possessor entry on the endleaf); 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 gilded leather corvina binding; gauffered, gilded edge (probably in the late 1480s); (the left board was placed back upside down)
Language of corvina: Latin
Condition: Repaired, re-bound; early 20th century
Hungarian translation(s) of work(s) included in the corvina: None