11. (Listius László): Magyar Márs...

... avagy Mohách mezején történt veszedelemnek emlékezete. 
Béchbén [!], 1653. Cozmerovius Máthe ny. 1pl.+(8)+154+80+(7)p.
Despite its shortcomings, literary historians regard the work as an important and remarkable achievement of Hungarian Baroque literature. Listius, however, secured his place in Hungarian cultural history less through this work than through his notorious life. The “Hungarian Villon” was interested in scholarship and familiar with classical and Hungarian literature as well as history, yet he is remembered as one of the darkest figures of his age – indeed of Hungarian history. He led a scandalous and extravagant life, openly maintaining relationships with several of his young male servants, for which his wife repeatedly denounced him. He was accused of sorcery, poisoning, and murder, and was ultimately executed by beheading for counterfeiting in 1662. His lifestyle nevertheless did not hinder his literary ambitions. As a contemporary and early follower of Miklós Zrínyi, he published the Magyar Márs in Vienna in 1653, in the very same printing house where Zrínyi’s great work, Adriai tengernek Syrenája (including the Szigeti veszedelem), had appeared two years earlier. The first part of the volume, Cladis Mohachianae – Magyar Márs avagy Mohách mezején történt veszedelemnek emlékezete, is a thirteen-part epic poem written in Balassi stanzas and based upon István Brodarics’s Latin memoir of the Battle of Mohács (De conflictu hungarorum cum turcis ad Mohacz verissima descriptio). The second part contains religious and patriotic lyric poems, including fifty-eight poems on Hungarian kings after János Zsámboky. Several poems on other subjects appear at the end of the work, among them a hymn to the Virgin Mary regarded as an important monument of the Patrona Hungariae cult.
The particular importance of the present copy lies in its inclusion of the engraved frontispiece, which is lacking from most surviving copies. Executed by the Pozsony engraver Moritz Lang, it depicts military glory: a youthful armoured warrior crowned with laurel rides in a chariot drawn by winged horses and accompanied by the double-headed eagle, while resting one hand upon the crowned Hungarian coat of arms. His motto reads: “Pro Deo et populo”. Above, putti hold a triple crown beneath the inscription “Gloriose actorum praemia”. The printed title page is adorned with a woodcut of the crowned Hungarian coat of arms within an ornamental frame.
To the best of our knowledge, no complete copy has yet appeared at auction. During the past six decades the work has surfaced on four occasions, all in incomplete copies lacking the engraved frontispiece.
This volume is a made-up copy assembled from two different exemplars; the first two gatherings (more precisely 34 leaves) are more worn than the remainder of the volume.
19th-century half leather. Frontispiece and the first leaves restored; restoration at the margin of the second leaf resulting in minor loss of text.
RMNy 2461.; RMK I 869.
 
Starting price: 5 000 000 Ft