An excellent book!
I'm thoroughly enjoying reading this one!
If you, like me, feel that there isn't much known about King Matthias and the 15th century, this book will prove us wrong! The story of Matthias and his book collection - illustrated manuscripts - and what happened to it, winds through the early history of Hungary. At the time Italians at court had influence as did Matthias' wife Beatrice who never did take much to Hungary, Hungarians, or the language, but brought some refinement with her from Naples and ended up back there as a broke widow.
While the Ottoman Turks attempted to take over Hungarian lands warfare and intrigue dominated the lives of the court and the people, Matthias continued to collect books.
To this day it is unknown how many books he actually had and estimates vary wildly. When he was dead and his people were no longer in power, the library was carried off so that today few books surely his survive. The quality of his books as well as the quantity are debatable.
I learned a lot about Hungarian history as a result of reading it through the characters in this book.
