Brenner Martinus (1 results)
De Humanae Vitae Conditione, & Toleranda Corporis Aegritudine: Ad Mathiam Corvinum Hungariae & Bohemiae Regem, & Beatricem Reginam, Dialogus
Brandolinus, Aurelius Lippus [Brandolini, Aurelio Lippo] ; Brassicanus, Johann Ludwig; Brenner, Martinus
Published by [Robert Winter], Basel 1541
- First Edition
Seller: Földvári Books, Budapest, HungaryFöldvári Books
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US$ 19,728.58
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Add to basketSewn without binding. Sewn without binding. 8vo. [24], 115, [3], [1 blank], [1] pp. Woodcut printer's device on final page. A rare 1541 Basel edition of Brandolinus's dialogue composed for King Matthias Corvinusa philosophical reflection on illness, mortality, and the ideals of Renaissance kingship. A humanist dialogue addressed… to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and his wife Beatrix of Naples, composed by the Italian orator and philosopher Lippus Brandolinus in the late 1480s but only printed posthumously in 1541. Printed in Basel, the edition includes an extensive dedicatory preface addressed to Nicolaus de Gerend (Miklós Gerendi), Bishop of Transylvania and royal counsellor, written by the Transylvanian Saxon humanist Martinus Brenner, who also oversaw the text's preparation. The dialogue was likely written during Brandolinus's brief stay at the court of Matthias Corvinus around 1489, where he was associated with the Neapolitan humanist circle promoted by Queen Beatrix. Aurelio Lippus Brandolinus (c. 14541497), a Florentine-born humanist trained in rhetoric and law, taught in Perugia and Rome before entering Matthias's service. He is also reported to have accompanied the king to Vienna in 1490 and to have delivered the funeral oration after Matthias's death. Known for his political and philosophical works, Brandolinus composed this dialogue in polished Ciceronian Latin, drawing on Stoic ethics and Christian consolation. The text takes the form of a princely conversation among Matthias, Beatrix, and Petrus Ransanus (Pietro Ranzano), the Neapolitan bishop, court orator, and envoy of the Kingdom of Naples to the Hungarian court between 1488 and 1490. Ransanus, also known as the author of the Epitome rerum Hungarorum, appears here as a philosophical interlocutor. The discussion reflects on illness, mortality, and the nature of kingship. Notably, Beatrix is portrayed as a moral and intellectual equal to the kingan exceptional role for a queen in Renaissance political literature, underscoring both her cultivated image and the ideological aspirations of the NeapolitanHungarian alliance. The dialogue stages a confrontation between the medieval contemptus mundi traditionvoiced by the ailing king, who sees earthly life as sufferingand the emerging humanist ideal of dignitas hominis, defended by Ransanus, who affirms life's divine order and value. Brandolinus's dialogue forms part of a broader tradition of Renaissance political philosophy in dialogue form, echoing themes found in the works of Pontano, Ficino, and other humanists who explored the moral duties of rulers. The volume also includes a dedicatory Latin poem by the Viennese humanist and jurist Johann Ludwig Brassicanus, addressed to Bishop Gerendi. The poem commemorates Matthias's dual legacy as a patron of war and learning, mourns the destruction of the royal library, and celebrates the recovery of Brandolinus's text. It credits both Gerendi's support and Brenner's editorial work for rescuing the dialogue from neglect and restoring it to the public. Martinus Brenner's preface contains one of the most vivid firsthand references to the Bibliotheca Corviniana, Matthias's royal library. Having visited it around 1539, he describes its devastated state following the Ottoman conquest and praises its former magnificence: "quam selectissime, Graecis & Latinis Autoribus ex ipsa Asia, Graecia, Italia undique conquisitis, [] superioribus annis Asiatica barbaries devastavit." This passage affirms the symbolic weight that Corvinian humanism retained in the mid-sixteenth century and underscores the cultural and historical importance of the dialogue's rediscovery. Brenner (Bistricienis Transylvanus, as he signs himself), the editor of the work, was a Transylvanian Saxon humanist born in Bistri?a (Beszterce) between 1500 and 1505. Educated in Latin and Greek, he began his career as a priest and later became a canon at Székesfehérvár. By the 1530s, he had cultivated a small humanist network and maintained a private library centered on classical and patristic texts. His interest in Hungary's Renaissance pastespecially the court of Matthias Corvinusshaped much of his later editorial activity. His prefacedated Vienna, 1 August 1541states that he had discovered the manuscript "some years ago" and only now dared to bring it to print. The work was likely first printed in Vienna by Johannes Singrenius (a copy of which survives in a single known example in Vienna and is not listed in USTC, suggesting extremely limited circulation), but the Basel edition, produced shortly thereafter by Robert Winter, incorporates corrections and a reorganized apparatus. It is likely the more complete and final textual form. Brenner prepared the text as part of a broader editorial effort that also included initiating the publication of Antonio Bonfini's Rerum Ungaricarum Decades. The printer, Robert Winter, collaborated with Brenner on both projects, and issued the first three Decades of Bonfini's work in 1543. These activities reflect a deliberate programme of Hungarian humanist publishing in Basel, aimed at preserving and circulating works tied to the court of Matthias Corvinus. Following his editorial work, Brenner enrolled at the University of Vienna in 1543, earned a doctorate in medicine at Bologna in 1547, and served as city physician and magistrate in Sibiu (Nagyszeben) from 1549. He travelled through Italy in his final years, keeping a diary that survives today in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest. He died in 1553, leaving behind a scholarly legacy that briefly bridged the Hungarian Renaissance with Reformation-era publishing. A rare and important work at the intersection of Hungarian intellectual history, Renaissance humanism, and princely ideology, and a key textual witness to the moral-political self-fashioning of Matthias Corvinus. At the same time, it reflects the complex political moment in which it re-emergedmarked by the Ottoman advance and the growing instabili.
