Koppány the leader of Syrmia?

The historical bibliographical lesson of a Wolfgang Lazius’ text

Abstract

In the 15th century, geographical descriptions of some regions appeared due to the advance of humanism. These descriptions can be independent volumes (such as Georg Reicherstorferr’s Chorographia Moldaviae or Chorographia Transilvaniae), or by following the humanist tradition they can be a schorarly prooemium to a comprehensive historical work written on one of the countries (for example the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Ransanus’ Epitome Rerurum Ungaricarum). The genre of the geographical description is part of the famous Viennese humanist, Wolfgang Lazius’ opus. He wrote chorography in Latin language: Interpretatio chorographiae utriusque Austriae (chorography of Austria), Regni Hungariae archaeologiae libri tres (chorography of Hungary), Descriptio Daciae sive Transylvaniae (chorography of Transilvania), and he published a geographical description of Hungary in German titled Des Khünigreichs Hungern.
Among the above works, I focus on Regni Hungariae archaeologiae libri tres, especially as a source of Hungarian history from Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin to the medieval ages. In Lazius’ sources we can find extremely precise source indications, for example „Plinius libro quarto capite duodecimo” or „Herodianus graecus author libro sexto”. Despite this Lazius’ references to sources of Hungarian history are rough-and-ready. He used the annales Hungarici or annales Hungarorum denotation.
The paper invites the reader to investigate which persons and books inspired Lazius, and what
were the sources of his work.