Patrons and Patterns: The Connection between the Aragon Dynasty of Naples and the Hungarian Court of Matthias Corvinus

Through the Angevin family, Naples and Hungary had very close relations in the 14th century. Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490) was thus reviving an old connection when he married Beatrice, daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples, in 1476. The Aragon dynasty’ s patronage of the arts was most notable in book collecting and music, and this found a lively echo in the court of Buda, especially the Corvina Library and the musical life. It was also through the link with Naples that Matthias’ library acquired Renaissance architectural treatises in the 1480s. Beatrice’ s brother Giovanni d’ Aragona may have been instrumental in this. Matthias appointed him Archbishop of Esztergom, the highest ecclesiastical dignity in Hungary (1484–1485). The other intermediary in the study of architecture was the Florentine humanist Francesco Bandini, who lived in Naples and came to the Hungarian court in 1476 in Beatrice’ s retinue. He brought Filarete’ s treatise from Italy for Matthias in 1488