„Hungarian” Epithalamium by a Student in Heidelberg for the Wedding of the Future „Winter King and Queen” (1613)

Abstract

The paper presents the international context of an epithalamium written by a Hungarian student in Heidelberg, Paulus Orvos Surius, dedicated to the wedding of Palatine Friedrich V of Pfalz and Elisabeth Stuart. Beside presenting the topoi borrowed from the international wedding propaganda in the work of Orvos Surius, the paper also sheds light on the common motives his epithalamium shared with the work of another student from Heidelberg, Johann Philip Pareus. A highlight of Orvos Surius’ work is his antipapal rhetoric, specifically the metaphors based on the figures of some fantastic beasts the author applied to the conflict between the Protestant Union and the Roman Curia. Among those metaphors appears the figure of an alleged monster living in the Lake Garda. The legend of this fantastic beast goes back to the sixteenth century. In the twenty-first century the monster was given its proper taxonomic name (Benacosaurus Lacustris) and became protagonist of a series of children’s books written by Thomas Brenner.