Galeotto had been the friend and tutor of Janus Pannonius at Ferrara. Later on, he went to Hungary as the guest, and partly as the jester, of the King, and of the humanists among the bishops. He had travelled in France, staying at the Court of Charles VIII., and in Spain and England. He composed bombastic praises of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He knew a little about everything and yet not much altogether, but he seems to have had a consummate knowledge of the art of being a parasite. He was witty, well-read, and clever, and easily became a favourite with everybody as an amusing though superficial conversationalist.[1]
The other historian of the King is Anthony Bonfini (1427-I502), a man of a less vivacious temperament than Galeotto, but more dignified, more learned, and more distinguished. Matthias preferred him to all the other foreign scholars, and kept him at his side even during his last years. What we learn about the King from the superficial, talkative Galeotto, is chiefly in the form of anecdotes, while Bonfini, on the other hand, wrote a careful treatise concerning the King's reign, in a style modelled on that of Livy.
It would be impossible to describe all the bright planets which revolved about that gorgeous sun, Matthias Corvinus. Such a society had never before been seen in Buda. Even at that epoch, it was perhaps only the Villa Careggi, the palace of the great Lorenzo, that witnessed gatherings rivalling those at Buda. The guests have just finished the feast. They are in the banqueting hall, where the King has been listening to
- ↑ Galeotto appears in Sir Walter Scott's Quentin Durward as a fascinating and eloquent astrologer, princely in appearance, but cunning and treacherous.
