Biblioteca Regală „Corviniana”, creaţia unui originar român

Abstract

Founded by the King of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, between 1458 and 1460, the Royal Library "Corvinian" was the most important institu- tion of its kind in Renaissance Europe, with over 5,000 volumes, each copy worth over 1,000 gold florins, exceeding, as a patrimonial value, the famous Medicea Laurenziana Library, in Florence, whose construction began in 1525 and which had 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 incunabula. The famous royal library in Budapest was surpassed in time only by the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, officially founded in 1475, although in reality it is much older, possessing 75,000 codes from the entire history of mankind. Bibliotheca Corviniana has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Scattered around the world after the death of King Matthias during the Turkish occu- pation, the precious pieces in the col- lection are now in about 50 libraries around the world. The number of „Corvina”, proven to be authen- tic, is 216, of which 53 are kept in the Hungarian collections, and 35 are in the Széchényi National Library.