Hungary and the Holy See of Rome II. Hungarian Historical Researches of the 21th Century in the Vatican (CVH I/15), ed. by PÉTER TUSOR–KORNÉL SZOVÁK–TAMÁS FEDELES, Budapest–Rome 2017. 436 p. + 11 suppl. (7 pictures printed on coated paper, 4 maps)
The volume gives a scientific plan to the forthcoming five years of the HAS-PPCU Vilmos Fraknói Vatican Historical Research Group that focuses on the Hungarian historical research in the Vatican and was established in 2017 as an organic continuation of the Impetus research group. It contains the lectures-turned-studies of the “Hungarian Historical Researches of the 21th Century in the Vatican” symposium of the VIIIth International Hungarology Congress organised by the Impetus research group on the 23rd August 2016.
The chronological and thematic order of the volume’s writings clearly outlines the planned focus and directions of the research group’s researches. The first five studies examine late medieval subject. Ágnes Maléth analyses the diplomatic relations between Charles I and the papal court in the light of sources from the Vatican Archives. Tamás Fedeles provides input to the work of the papal tax collectors by the presentation of the operation of one of them: Péter, son of István, whose person is well-known both for the Hungarian and the Polish research. Kornél Szovák examines how the Turkish question appeared in the supplications handed in the Roman Curia in the fifteenth century. Gábor Nemes processed the late medieval presence of laics and priests from the diocese of Győr in Rome leaning on various curial types of sources. Finally, the study of Bálint Lakatos provides insight into the ceremonial hierarchy of the papal court, in which he examines the place of Hungary.
The focus of the next six studies is the Early Modern Age. Viktor Kanász outlines his plan to reveal the Vatican sources concerning the curial process of György Fráter’s murder, with which he desires to settle the long-standing debt of the Hungarian historiography. Similarly, Péter Tusor drafts the details of his project about the methodical exploitation of the verbals of the seventeenth century canonical examinations. Tamás Tóth deals with this subject for the eighteenth century. Tamás Kruppa analyses the relations of politics and religion in the early seventeenth century on the basis of the works and correspondence of the Jesuit Giovanni Argenti. Béla Vilmos Mihalik also presents a diplomatic subject: the connections of the Holy See and the Court of Vienna at the end of the 17th century, at the time of the Roman legation of Count Georg Adam von Martinitz. Gábor Kisvarga outlines the plan to publish the monograph of Ferenc Galla, which survived in a manuscript, on the missions in the territory under Turkish rule.
The last four studies delineate the third main direction of the investigations of the research group; the Hungarian historical researches in the Vatican about the twentieth century. Krisztina Tóth presents the point of view of the Holy See about the Hungarian royal right of patronage at the turn of the 1920s through the protocols of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. Máté Gárdonyi reveals the documentary value of the renewed ad limina reports submitted already not to the Congregation of Council, but to the Consistorial Congregation. Tamás Véghseő provides interesting additions to the problems of the consolidation of the Hungarian Greek Catholics after the Treaty of Trianon in his source publication. Ultimately, Lilla Fehér unfolds a chapter of the history of the emigration in Rome after 1945: the attempt to establish the Saint Stephen Academy.
The volume is supplemented by rich source material, charts and maps published at the singular studies, pictures, summaries in English and an index.