Anotimpurile cruciate ale unui rege: documente milaneze asupra politicii lui Matia Corvin în anul 1475*
The Crusader Seasons of a King: Documents on Matthias Corvinus’ Policies in the Year 1475

Summary/Abstract: The paper is an inventory of selected sources that help retrace the main coordinates and the evolution (“the seasons”) of Matthias Corvinus throughout 1475, a year that began with great crusader hopes and expectations (in particular after mid March) and virtually ended in Ottoman fear and threat and Christian concern and feud. Based on documents extracted from Italian archives, the paper also directs attention towards the relation between fact and propaganda in the early months of 1476, after the Ottoman conquest of Caffa in June 1475 and prior to sultan Mehmed II’s Moldavia campaign of July 1476. The study indicates also the structural internal relation between the various units in king Matthias Corvinus’ “great anti-Ottoman” army and administration, as recorded that year by various western diplomats with “support” from the king of Hungary. The analysis reveals both the conscientious exaggerations made and their detrimental effects on the pragmatic reception and support of crusader warfare, led by East Central European monarchs, in the Italian Peninsula. At the same time, the sources point out the efforts made by the parties directly involved in the clash with the Ottoman Empire to overcome these handicaps and to secure actual funding, without however (fully) abandoning the rhetoric of exaggeration.

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