Matthias Corvinus and His Age [antikvár]

It is 500 years since the death - in 1490 - of Matthias Corvinus (1458-1490), fearless commander of the invincible Black Army and consummate politician, one of the most educated crowned heads of 15th century Europe. His achievement — strong power concentrated in the hands of the king, based on an efficient economy and backed by a strong army, the flowering of intellectual life, culture and the arts in Hungary - raises the "just Matthias" of Hungarian folktales to the rank of his most outstanding contemporaries (Lorenzo Medici of Florence, Louis XI of France, Henry Tudor VII of England, Christopher Columbus, Leonardo, Botticelli, Pope Pius II). However, when the fifteen-year-old youth ascended the throne he faced the Turkish threat and the countless dangers of feudal anarchy that was destroying the country. In the mid-15th century the conquering Ottoman Turks swept away the remains of the Byzantine Empire: in 1453 they occupied Constantinople and thus extended their power over the Balkans too. In 1456 the victorious armies of Sultan Mohammed were stopped at Nándorfehérvár (today's Belgrade), a strategically important fortress of Southern Hungary in the 15th century, by Matthias Corvinus's father who rose from the rank of common soldier to become a big estate owner and army leader and later governor (1446-52), János Hunyadi (ca. 1409-1456). The victory, for which the Christian world prayed with the pealing of bells at noon ordered by Pope Calixtus III - a practice which is still observed -deterred the Turks from warfare for half a century. The Franciscan preacher, John of Capistrano (1386-1456), who was canonized after his death, one of those who proclaimed the crusade against the Turks, also played his part in the victory of Nándorfehérvár. In order to break the growing power of the Hunyadi family. King Louis V (1452-57) had János Hunyadi's eldest son, László, executed in 1457 and carried off the younger child, Matthias, as a prisoner to Prague. However, his intrigues proved unsuccessful. After his death, in early 1458, the diet that gathered on the frozen Danube to elect the new Hungarian king raised the 14-year-old Matthias to the throne. News of his election reached the new ruler in the Prague court of his ally (and father of his betrothed, Katherine Podiebrad), the Bohemian king George Podiebrad. 2 Portrait of Mattliias in the Thuróczy Chronicle 3 Page Of the Philostratus Codex with a picture of Matthias's entry into Vienna, Budapest, National Széchényi Library