István Szamosközy


Stefan Zamosius was a Hungarian humanist and historian.

Life

Szamosközy was born in Kolozsvár, Transylvania to a Calvinist family. He completed his studies at Heidelberg and Padova. In 1593 he returned to Transylvania and started to work at Gyulafehérvár for the archive of the Transylvanian court. There he started collecting materials and writing his major work on Hungarian history.
Stephen Bocskai nominated him as the official court historian.

Works

His unfinished Hungarian history was never published but parts are extant in many manuscript copies. Farkas Bethlen saved longer parts in his Transylvanian history. He designed his work based on the example of Antonio Bonfini's Decades. Sándor Szilágyi published Szamosközy's works in four volumes in Szamosközy történeti maradványai, Budapest 1876–1880.