A particular life in second half of the sixteenth century: Martin Brenner, Saxon humanist of Transylvania

Abstract

A This article is the first serious attempt at reconstructing the biography of Martin Brenner, containing also an edition of his only surviving letter. This humanist of Hungary, coming from a German (Saxon) town of Transylvania, Bistriţa (Beszterce, Bistritz, earlier Nösen, RO), has been primarily known as the first publisher of Antonio Bonfini’s Rerum Ungaricarum decades, although the text he published was only partial, lacking the last part on the period of King Matthias. The numerous shorter biographies or biographical comments of past historians have offered some valuable details but also made much confusion. While earlier we had no idea of Brenner’s date of birth, thanks to some data on his surviving books we can now place it between 1500 and 1505. While we know nothing of his early education, it is clear that it was solid enough to acquire not only Latin but also Greek. Brenner probably studied in one of the bishopric centres or major city schools, supported by his uncle, who we can identify in the person of Lőrinc Kretschmer of Beszterce (Laurentius Bistritius), provost of Székesfehérvár till 1530, who was in turn nephew of György Szatmári, bishop of Pécs, an influential and learned politician of the Jagiellonian period. Brenner thus probably studied to be a clerical, and in 1533 started in fact a church career as a priest of Viişoara (Heidendorf, Besenyő, RO), a village next to his hometown. However, he shortly gave up this position and moved to Székesfehérvár (Alba Regia), joining the cathedral chapter. His only known letter was dated from here in 1536. By the time Brenner had not only a select library but also a circle of learned friends, many of whom shared with him nostalgia for the cultural world and political power of Hungary in Matthias Corvinus’s times. These men consciously searched for the treasures and literary products of this epoch; Brenner among others searched through the remnants of the Buda library. However, the occupation of Buda and the middle part of Hungary in 1541 meant that he had to change life. From the party of King John Szapolyai he joined that of King Ferdinand and probably moved to Vienna, where he first published Lippo Brandolini’s dialogue De humanae vitae conditione with some erudite commentaries in 1541 (which also appeared in Basel twice), then prepared Bonfini’s history for print in 1543, likewise sending it to the Basel publisher Thomas Winter. He also sent to Basel a third manuscript, Brandolini’s Paradoxa Christiana, which was edited by Winter’s assistant Johannes Basilius Herold (Acropolita). At the same time, Brenner, already a mature man enrolled at the University of Vienna (1543), and later obtained a doctoral degree in medicine at Bologna in 1547. Two years later he was employed as town physician of Sibiu (Nagyszeben, Hermannstadt, RO), Transylvania’s largest town. The last known episode of this curious career is Brenner’s late tour in Italy (from Padua to Naples) in 1551 or 1552, the diary of which survived in Széchényi National Library. Brenner, already a city magistrate, died in 1553; the Greek epigraph he prepared before his death might still be visible in Sibiu.