Katalin Prajda is the author of several articles on Florentines and their communities in late medieval Hungary, and a work of monograph-length has been eagerly awaited. It does not disappoint. Filippo (Pippo) Scolari, the critical figure in her study, was a charismatic diplomat, administrator and general, who rose to high office in the kingdom of Hungary and was buried alongside royalty in the basilica of Székesfehérvár. His career was all the more remarkable given his humble beginnings as a trader from an impoverished Florentine family, and, as Prajda demonstrates, Scolari represents but the tip of a significant movement of Florentines into Hungary during the reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg (1387–1437). Prajda's monograph, supported by extensive archival research in repositories across northern and central Italy, draws together for the first time the activities of dozens of Florentines who made careers in Hungary – as traders, fighters, administrators, craftsmen, churchmen, artists and architects – against the intersections of international trade, trans-national migration and warfare with Venice and the Ottoman Turks.
After the introduction, the work is divided into five sections. The first section examines the nature of Florentine government during the Albizzi regime (1382–1434), and then surveys Florentine trading links and communities across Christendom, before exploring the Florentine connections with the kingdom of Hungary in the second half of the fourteenth century. The remaining chapters examine different spheres of the Florentine communities in Hungary, which Prajda structures according to their affinity with Scolari – moving from the ‘centre’ (Scolari and his family) to the ‘core’ (Scolari's relatives by blood and marriage), and then examining the ‘outer circle’ (Scolari's business associates) and the ‘periphery’ (artists and craftsmen employed by the Scolari kindred). Prajda sheds light on hitherto unknown or understudied facets of Florentine activity in the kingdom of Hungary, highlighting the role that the Scolari family and their associates played in establishing trading and manufacturing networks, their introduction of novel forms of art and architecture and their eagerness to patronize native Hungarian saints. Prajda's perspective is comparative at times, contrasting Florentine experience in Hungary with case-studies of Florentines in royal service in England and Aragon, and further work in this area would be welcome. The footnotes contain extensive portions of unpublished archival material from Florentine archives and make accessible a range of materials from diverse record series to much broader audience. In this respect, there is much on offer to historians of international diplomacy. Prajda describes the course of a Florentine embassy dispatched to Hungary in the 1420s, including their difficulties in tracking down Sigismund, their command to sit at his feet and their eventual discussions with the monarch, who responded in fluent Latin (p. 119). Prajda draws out the richness of her source materials well: the purchase of monkeys and ostriches from Tunisia for the Hungarian court (p. 44); an angry king wanting to shoot his Florentine captains (p. 166); and smuggling of precious metals (p. 157), all stand for other vignettes gleaned from archives, that offer fascinating insights into the experiences of a migrant community in the pre-modern world.
There remain criticisms, nevertheless. The five principal chapters of the book lack concluding sections and could have used more polished endings to draw the threads of each chapter together with more overarching analysis. One of the most important works on Italians in Sigismund's court – if not the most important, before the appearance of Prajda's book – is missing from the bibliography: Gisela Beinhoff, Die Italiener am Hof Kaiser Sigismunds (Frankfurt am Main, 1995. The book needed a tighter editorial hand in places. On p. 52, for example, Prajda explores the reaction of Florence's leaders to Hungarian events in the 1380s, including Coluccio Salutati's reading of a public letter celebrating Charles of Durazzo's coronation as king of Hungary, and many of these events and developments are described and discussed again (with some minor differences) on pp. 62–3. More copy-editing was required, especially in the bibliography: there are mistakes in the works of titles (e.g. on p. 245, Worlds in Change has become Words in Change), repeated words in some entries (even, on p. 241, in one of the author's own works) and erratic italicization.
These criticisms, however, do not detract from the value of this monograph. The 18 images, charts and tables contribute to an informative and engaging book that will be read with interest by scholars interested in migration, trade and urban communities, as well as the polities of late medieval Italy and central Europe. As more studies of Italian city-states and their relations with polities in central Europe emerge, it is hoped that they exhibit the same mastery of archival material and clarity of thought that Prajda has invested in her subject.
