A humanista kánon alakulása Veneto és Magyarország között

Guarino, Francesco Barbaro, Janus Pannonius és Xenophón

Absztrakt

This article presents a new critical edition of a 1453 letter from Guarino Veronese (Epistolario no. 870) to his most distinguished pupil, the Venetian humanist Francesco Barbaro (Senili no. 460 in the forthcoming edition). Particular emphasis is placed on the significance of the letter’s postscript, preserved only in manuscript 1261 of the University Library of Padua, in which Guarino urges Barbaro to secure a professional appointment for the young JanusPannonius. This striking passage, omitted in both principal manuscript witnesses (Guarneriano 28 and Vat. lat. 5220), as well as in the editions of Quirini and Sabbadini, offers rare insight into the perception of Janus Pannonius as a fully formed representative of the Italian humanist educational model. The essay argues that the letter testifies to Janus Pannonius’s thorough assimilation into the classical humanist curriculum cultivated by Guarino, which included proficiency in Greek and a broad grounding in philosophy and the sciences. Following his time in Ferrara, Janus Pannonius continued his studies at the University of Padua to pursue canon law. His interest in Xenophon, likely nurtured by Guarino, is reflected in the transmission of a manuscript of Xenophon originally owned by Guarino and later presented to Janus Pannonius by his son, Battista Guarino, who became his close companion. By bringing together this neglected textual variant and the history of the manuscript’s transmission, the article sheds new light on the migration of the studia humanitatis from Veneto to Hungary and on the ways in which intellectual authority and cultural belonging were negotiated in the early Renaissance.