Bibliotheca Corvina Virtualis – completely renewed internet service

As part of the Corvina Program of National Széchényi Library lasting for decades – in addition to the exhibition entitled The Corvina Library and the Buda Workshop, open as of November 6, 2018 –, a completely renewed version of the corvina website set up some fifteen years ago has been launched.

In the first phase of the development, the service was provided not only with a brand new design and a state-of-the art interface, but also with a new structure, a renewed narrative, accompanied by a number of artistic photographs; and sixty-four corvinas (all of the corvinas kept in Hungary and the nine corvinas kept in Wolfenbüttel) have been displayed in their entirety on the website.

The content service, available both in Hungarian and in English, publishes the full list of the surviving items of the onetime Corvina Library: items which are currently kept by libraries across Europe and the United States. At the same time, the service aims to offer a continuously expanding complex bibliography of related literature.

The website also features short films and other curiosities, including portrayals of King Matthias, King Matthias emblems, and corvina watercolors painted by Gyula Végh (1870–1951), onetime director of the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest.

Long-term aim of the thematic service is the virtual reconstruction of Bibliotheca Corvina, the royal library of Hungarian King Matthias Hunyadi (1458–1490). In addition to a full visual display of codices and, to a smaller extent, of incunabula, NSZL’s service will also serve as a forum of corvina research, gaining momentum lately. Significant even in its fragments, the humanist collection has been a major and constant source group of not only the Hungarian, but also international Humanism and Renaissance research, and it is also one of Hungary’s cultural ambassadors in the world. Bibliotheca Corvina was recommended for inclusion in the Memory of the World Register of UNESCO in 2005.

You can access the website at the following URL: www.corvina.oszk.hu.