the Hungarian bards as they sang the deeds of the King, and of his great father, John Hunyadi.[1] Inspired by their song Janus Pannonius expresses his resolve to write an heroic epic about John Hunyadi. Now they are in the library, talking about the great philosopher Plato, who has been recalled to life, as it were, by the Renaissance. The heads of the State of Florence, Cosimo de' Medici and Lorenzo the Magnificent, are most enthusiastic disciples of the philosopher: a society was soon formed for the study of Plato, and men recognised in him the greatest prose-writer of classical times.
Janus Pannonius was a keen student of Plato,[2] and he translated the works of his follower, Plotinus, into Latin. Matthias was especially fond of the Platonic philosopher Apuleius.
Thirteen centuries before, there dwelt in Hungary a man familiar with Plato, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wrote his philosophical works near the banks of the river Granua (Garam). And at the end of thirteen centuries there were again lovers of Plato in "the land of the four rivers." The great fascination exercised by Plato upon the minds of men in the fifteenth century is clearly shown in the letters written to King Matthias by the great Florentine Platonist Marsilius Ficinus, all of them full of allusions to the philosopher and enthusiastic in his praise.
The centre of the gathering in Buda was always Matthias, not the most learned there, but the most
- ↑ One of these songs, describing the siege of the fortress of Sabácz by Matthias, was found in 1871.
- ↑ "When he spoke in Greek," Bonfini says of Pannonius, "you would think he must have been born in Athens." And Vespasiano says, "It seemed as if Janus Pannonius had been brought up by Socrates himself."
