A Habsburg Birodalom és a Magyar Királyság velencei szemmel. Pietro Duodo záróbeszámolója II. Rudolf udvarából [The Habsburg Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary from a Venetian Point of View. Pietro Duodo’s Final Report from the Court of Rudolf II] (original) (raw)

Kanász Viktor – Kriston Dorottya: A Habsburg Birodalom és a Magyar Királyság velencei szemmel. Pietro Duodo záróbeszámolója II. Rudolf udvarából. In: Kovács Annamária et al. (szerk.): Idegen környezetben. Az idegen és a más a régiségben. Fiatalok Konferenciája 2021. Budapest, 2023. 39–59.

The Habsburg Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary from a Venetian Point of View: Pietro Duodo’s Final Report from the Court of Rudolf II In the medieval and early modern ages, ambassadors of the Republic of Venice had to submit a so-called relazione, a detailed final report giving a precise description of the state where they represented the Signoria. In addition to fulfilling his duties, Pietro Duodo, one of the most successful diplomats of the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, offered more information about the Habsburg Empire than was necessary. In his final report, he presents not only its economic and military status, but also the characteristics of the different ethnicities, the history of Hungary, etc., and he often comments and reveals his opinion about the facts or the political processes of his age. Thanks to the variety of the covered topics, his relazione has huge value. The original document is conserved by the Torino State Archive, and in the late 19th century, Baron Albert Nyáry made a copy of it, which is in the Manuscript Collection of Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Science. The report had been known in Hungary prior to the Second World War, but it had never been properly analyzed, and it had been completely forgotten in recent decades. This paper’s objective is to give a general overview of Duodo’s work, presenting plenty of possibilities to researchers.