Where Was István Báthori Educated? Or: The Genesis of a Legend

Abstract

SEER,Vol. 8o, No.3, Jtuy 2002 MARGINALIA WherewasIstvanBathoriEducated?or:the Genesisof a Legend GEORGE GOMORI THE allegationthat Istv'anBTathori (in its Polonizedform, Stefan Batory), kingofPolandfromI576 to I586,studiedattheUniversity of Paduain his youth is made regularlyin Hungariantextbooksand occasionally(witha questionmark)in Polishones. The lastkingof Poland, StanislawAugust Poniatowski,went as far as to erect a memorialin I 789on thePratodellaValein Paduawhichclaimsthat 'StefanBatory'had studiedat this famousuniversity.'As for the HungarianBiographical Encyclopaedia of I967, it claimswithoutany reservation thatB'athori 'completedhis studiesat PaduaUniversity'2 and the notes to a morerecentpublication, J'anosBaranyaiDecsi's Hungarian Chronicle (I982) maketheevenmoredubiousclaimthatthe futurekingof Polandstudiedin Padua'togetherwith FarkasKovacsoczy '.3 Kovacsoczy,an astuteTransylvanian politicianand at one pointheadofBathori's Transylvanian Chancellery, didindeedstudyin Paduain I569-70 he was born in I540 whereasBathori's presumed studythere wouldhavetaken placein 1549-50. Thisraises thequestionastowhetherthereare,infact,anyfirmdatathatsupport thehypothesis thatIstvanBathorimighthavespentmorethana few daysorweeksof hislifeattheuniversity frequented bymanyeminent PolesandHungarians inthesixteenthcentury. IstvanBTathori of Somlyowasbornin I533 andas a youngboyhe wassentby his olderbrotherAndrasto Vienna,to be a page at the courtofFerdinand I,kingofHungary.In 1549 bothheandhisbrother MikloswereincludedinthedelegationthattookFerdinand's daughter Catherine toItalywhereshewastomarrythePrinceofMantua.They arrived atMantuasometimeintheautumnof I549butitisnotknown atwhattimetheyreturned toViennaortoTransylvania. Thereisonly one letterwhichcould serveas a slightbasisto the hypothesisthat IstvanBathorivisitedPaduaat all:LorincRevay,a youngHungarian aristocrat thenstudying in Paduawritesto hisfatheronNovemberI 2, George Gomori is Emeritus Lecturer in Polish at the University of Cambridge, and Emeritus Fellow of Darwin College. 'Jerzy Besala, StefanBatogy,Warsaw, I 992, p. 493 (hereafter, Besala). 2 MagyarEletrajziLexikon,Budapest, I967, p. I38. 3 BaranyaiDecsiJdnos magyar hist6riaja(I592-I598), trans. Pter KulcsAr, Budapest, I982, p. 40I. 484 GEORGE GOMORI 1549: 'Invimus familiaritatem cum adolescentibus nobilissimis et optimis Nicolao Bathoreo, Stephano somliai Bathoreo.'4 The place wheretheseyoung Hungariansmet isnot indicated. It could have been Padua, but in Veress's collection this particular letter is followed by severalotherswrittenby the Revay brothersand theirtutor, Sigismund Torda of Gyalu, informing Ferenc Revay about theirrecent excursion to Mantuawhere they met various people, including Ferdinand's son.5 One could surmise, therefore, that the encounter with the Bathori brothers reported above took place in Mantua rather than in Padua itself. This, of course, does not mean that Istv'anBathori never set foot in this famous university. He could have made a short sight-seeingvisit thereand perhapsit was he who invitedthe Revays to come to Mantua where they had the opportunityof meeting some othermembersof the imperial delegation. While this is possible, it is, however, no proof of Bathori's Paduan studies. The Revay brothers stayed in Padua for a number of years, but they never again referred to Istvan; neither is there any trace of his presence in the University's matricula. Much later, in I607, a reference is made by J. A. Thuanus to a storywhich asserts that Istv'anBathori and Andreas Dudith (or Dudycz) studied together in Padua.6According to Jerzy Besala, however, author of a recent biography, the future king of Poland had already returned to Transylvaniaby early I 550 where a conflict was brewing between a party of Queen Isabella and Governor Gyorgy Friater(Martinuzzi).7 Dudith, as Costil and other sourceshave it, left Verona for Paduaonly at the end of I550, which means they could not have met therebefore that date.8 Dudith himself, who later on as an imperial diplomat became Bathori'sinfluentialenemy, never referredto the fact that he knew Bathori from Padua; nor did ChancellorJan Zamoyski, one of King Stefan'smain supporters,whose own Paduan studieswere often extolled by contemporaries, make any reference to their mutual acquaintance in Padua.9The fact that many diplomats and officials (whetherPolishor Hungarian)servingIstvanBathoristudiedin Padua provides no evidence to support the 'Paduan hypothesis' either: the king read many classical authors and spoke Latin well and, as many other princes of contemporary Europe, was convinced of the high reputationof the Universityof Padua. 4 Quoted by Endre Veress, MatriculaetActa Hungarorum in Universitate PatavinaStudentium (1264-I864), Fontes Rerum Hungaricarum i, Budapest, I9I5, p. 42 (hereafter, Veress). 5 Ibid., p. 43. 6 Quoted in Veress, p. 43, and by Pierre Costil, Andre Dudith, Humaniste Hongrois I533-I589, Paris, I935, pp. 6I-62 (hereafter, Costil). I Besala, p. 2 1. 8 Costil, p. 6i. 9 For example, Szymon Starowolski, Setnikpisarzow po1skich, Crac6w, I970, p. 94. WHERE WAS ISTVAN BATHORI EDUCATED? 485 No panegyricabout Istv'anBathori,includingorationsmourninghis death, claimed that he had attended the famous university.Even the German...