“Think that you are not sending a letter, but [...] sending all the comforts of human life” Correspondence between Poliziano and Girolamo Donato

Abstract

This is an introductory study to the Hungarian translation of letters between Poliziano and Girolamo Donato. Before analyzing the correspondence, the paper outlines Donato’s career, it also refers to the points of connection between the two of them. In addition to their shared passion for antique literature and philosophy, they had two common friends: Ermolao Barbaro and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Furthermore one of Pico’s letter to Donato was the initiator of the exchange of letters and Poliziano inserted this in his Epistolae (Book II) before the correspondence between the two of them, and so it is similarly presented here to. The main themes of the sophisticated, playful and scholarly Latin “dialogue” are existential questions. Beyond manuscript borrowing, copying, and their ongoing translations they discuss how much time important or tiny-doings leave for research and creation. Last but not least, we get a clear picture of the fundamental importance of reputation for a humanist, so defence and defiance alliances between each other and mutual praise is paramount and critical.