Janus Pannonius, Bartolomeo Melzi, and the Sforzas

Janus Pannonius (1434-72), Hungary's foremost Renaissance poet, has been the subject of continuous work by Hungarian students of the period engaged in identifying and describing his oeuvre and its European reception. This endeavor, of course, also includes searching for any and all contacts Pannonius had with his humanist contemporaries. Each time a new Janus MS is discovered (and it still happens), new titles are added to his ‘bibliography’ and new names to the roster of his many foreign friends. Here and there among his famous acquaintances an unknown name appears which in turn triggers new research and speculations, often yielding new insights into the varied activities of Pannonius, and, as a by-product, reveals additional information regarding the dynamism of fifteenth-century Europe.