about the person of the monarch. And Galeotti, the librarian of King Matthias, asserts that his father, the celebrated John Hunyadi, awakened the martial spirit of his master by the hero-songs which he caused to be recited to him. “At table too,” he says, “musicians and cithara players sung the deeds of valiant warriors in their native tongue to the music of the lyre-an usage," he continues, “brought from Rome, and which passed from us (Italians) even to the Hungarians."[1] At this period the literary influence of Italy upon Hungary was very remarkable, and Dante has expressed in his Paradise s bright anticipation for the
Beata Ungria! se non si lascia
Più malmenare.Cant. xix.
But of this period little remains, except such scattered notices and fragments as are scarcely remarkable enough to occupy a place in this brief notice.
Simon von Reza is the first of the Hungarian Chroniclers. His history is from the earliest times down to the end of the thirteenth century.
- ↑ Of one of the Hungarian Bishops, Galeotti writes, "Perplacuit etiam mihi illa familiae suae dignitas et elegantia sempereuim in ejus domo aut oratur aut studetur aut carmen cantatur ad lyram aut sermo habetur honestus." Cap. 31.
