Neapolitan Cardinal in Early Renaissance Hungary •
Authors: Farbaky Péter 
Published: April 2022

In recent years, international research has turned with renewed attention to the Hungarian early renaissance and the art patronage of King Matthias Corvinus. indeed, it was in Hungary that italian renaissance art first appeared outside the italian peninsula. in 1476, he married Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinando d’aragona (Ferrante), who brought to Buda a love of books and music she had inherited from her grandfather, alfonso d’aragona. the work of Beatrice’s brother, giovanni d’aragona, previously known mainly from thomas Haffner’s monograph on his library (1997), is presented here from the viewpoint of his influence on Matthias’s art patronage. Ferrante’s children, alfonso, Beatrice, and giovanni were educated by outstanding humanist teachers. giovanni acquired many church benefices, and when Pope sixtus iv created him cardinal at the age of twenty-one, he made a dazzling entrance to rome. John was – together with Marco Barbo, oliviero Carafa, and Francesco gonzaga – one of the principal contemporary patrons of the College of Cardinals.

On 19 april 1479 the pope named him legatus a latere to support King Matthias’s planned crusade against the Porte. giovanni went from rome to Hungary via Ferrara and Milan with two noted humanists in his retinue: the encyclopedist raffaele Maffei (volaterranus) and Felice Feliciano, bookbinder and collector of roman inscriptions. He spent much of his eight-month stay in Hungary with Matthias and Beatrice, no doubt exerting a significant influence on them, particularly in the collecting of books. Matthias appointed his brother-in-law archbishop of esztergom, the highest clerical office in Hungary. leaving Hungary in July 1480, giovanni returned to rome via venice and Florence, where lorenzo de’ Medici showed him the most valuable works of art in his palace. giovanni was appointed legate to Hungary again by sixtus iv in september 1483, and – together with Francesco Fontana – he stayed in Buda and esztergom between october 1483 and June 1484. the royal couple presented him with silver church vessels, a gold chalice, vestments, and a miter.

Giovanni’s patronage focused on book collecting and building. He spent an annual sum of six thousand ducats on his library, and his acquisitions included contemporary architectural treatises by alberti and Filarete. it was around the time he was in Buda – between 1479 and 1481 – that the first large-format luxury codices were made for Matthias and Beatrice by the excellent Florentine miniaturist, Francesco rosselli. in rome, giovanni (and Francesco gonzaga) employed the Paduan illuminator gaspare da Padova, and his example encouraged Matthias and Beatrice to commission all’antica codices. anthony Hobson has detected a link between Queen Beatrice’s Psalterium and the livius codex copied for giovanni: both were bound by Felice Feliciano, who came to Hungary with the Cardinal. Feliciano’s probable involvement with the erlangen Bible (in the final period of his work, probably in Buda) may therefore be an important outcome of the art-patronage connections between giovanni and the king of Hungary.

A passion for building was something else that giovanni shared with Matthias. He built a palace for himself in the monastery of Montevergine and another near Montecassino, of which he was abbot. He also built the villa la Conigliera in Naples. Matthias’ interest in architecture is much mentioned in antonio Bonfini’s history of Hungary, but only fragments of his monumental constructions, which included the renaissance villa Marmorea in the gardens to the west of the royal Palace of Buda, have survived.

Giovanni and Matthias also had a connection through the famous Milan goldsmith Cristoforo Foppa (Caradosso), whose workshop was located in giovanni’s palace in rome. after his patron’s death in autumn 1485, he attempted to sell a – subsequently famous – silver salt cellar he had been unable to complete. it may also have been at the Cardinal’s recommendation that Matthias invited Caradosso to Buda for a several-month stay in 1489/90, during which he made silver tableware and possibly – together with three other lombardian goldsmiths who were there at the time – the lower part of the magnificent Matthias Calvary.

Further items in the metalware category are our patrons’ seal matrices. My research has uncovered two smaller seals, both with the arms of the House of aragon at the center, that belonged to giovanni d’aragona. one, dating from 1473, is held in the archives of the Benedictine abbey of Montecassino. the other was made after he was created cardinal in late 1477 (it is held in Hungarian National archives). He also had an elaborate prelate’s seal matrix made in the early renaissance style, of which impressions survive on the documents in the archivio apostolico vaticano and the esztergom Primatial archive. at the center of the mandorla-shaped field, sitting on a throne, is the virgin Mary (Madonna lactans type) together with two intervening standing saint figures whose identification requires further research. Beneath it is the cardinal’s coat of arms crowned with a hat. it may date from the time of Caradosso’s first presumed stay in rome (1475–1479), suggesting him as the maker of the matrix, although to my knowledge there is no further evidence for this. the seals of King Matthias have been thoroughly studied, and the form and use of each type have been almost fully established.

Giovanni d’aragona was buried in rome, in his titular church, the Dominican Basilica of santa sabina. Johannes Burckard described the funeral procession from the palace to the aventine in his Liber notarum. Matthias died in the vienna Burg, a residence he had only just taken up, in 1490. His body was taken in grand procession to Buda and subsequently to Fehérvár Basilica, the traditional burial place of Hungarian kings. the careers of giovanni and Matthias, full of military, political and ecclesiastical accomplishments, were thus both cut short. the great works of art they engendered, however, mark them out as highly influential patrons of renaissance art and humanist culture.