Das Rätsel der Sappho-Corvina – Zur Interpretation des Lobgedichts von Naldo Naldi auf die Bibliothek von Matthias Corvinus

Bolonyai, Gábor (2012) Das Rätsel der Sappho-Corvina – Zur Interpretation des Lobgedichts von Naldo Naldi auf die Bibliothek von Matthias Corvinus. Wiener Studien, 125. pp. 145-163. ISSN 0084-005X

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Abstract

Naldo Naldi’s encomiastic letter poem in four books, De laudibus augustae bibliothecae carmina, provides the fullest description of Matthias Corvinus’s library. His list of authors, however, includes a couple of baffling items such as Sappho’s poems, which, according to our present knowledge, did not survive Byzantine times. Concerning the possible availability of the Lesbian poetess’s works in Buda, scholarly opinions differ considerably. Those ones who take Naldi’s description basically reliable would at least leave open the possibility of a real Sappho manuscript belonging to the Corvinian library. Others are more sceptical. Some of them ascribe the inclusion of her works into the catalogue to the panegyrical mode of the poem and the flattering attitude Naldi shows towards the king. A most influential interpretation considers the whole encomium as a poetic vision about the ideal humanistic library, a fictional construction which should be understood on its own fictional terms. This paper offers a different approach and explanation for Sappho’s presence in Naldi’s poem and the Royal Library in Buda, and it also explores the literary and theoretical context into which the Florentine poet’s canon-forming encomium can be placed.

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