The Hungarian Histories of Gian Michele Bruto

The Tradition Manuscript of the Rerum Ungaricarum libri

Abstract

Gian Michele Bruto (1517–1592) wrote his monumental history of Hungary from 1574 until his death. The Rerum Ungaricarum libri was the story of Hungary’s decline and fall in the 16th century, written in a single narrative. According to the plans of its original commissioner, the Transylvanian prince and later Polish king Stephen Báthory, it was meant to provide a political counterweight to the court of Vienna and to represent an independent, constitutional Hungary to the European public. Although a version was certainly completed by 1584, the work was not published during Báthory’s lifetime. In 1587, Brutus first entered into Habsburg service, then at the end of 1591 travelled to Transylvania, because he was informed, that the work was to be published there. He died in Alba Iulia in May 1592. The Transylvanian court still planned to publish the work in the 1590s – István Szamosközy wrote a sequel to it (Rerum Ungaricarum libri IV) and brought Brutus’ manuscripts into publishable condition – but this publication never realised.

The first edition of the work appeared in print only in the 19th century in the series of Monumenta Hungariae Historica Scriptores. The text was edited by Ferenc Toldy based on two highly damaged and mutilated 16th-century manuscripts and contained slightly more than thirteen books of the original work.

In 2020 an almost complete manuscript of twenty books (fully annotated by the author himself) was discovered in the Diocesean Library, Trento. The philological analysis of the now three manuscripts has allowed us to distinguish four different editing stages, three of which are attributed to Brutus and the fourth to István Szamosközy. In addition to the philological comparison of the manuscripts, the study also reveals the fascinating history of the origin of Rerum Ungaricarum libri.